Crude stocks in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve have fallen to their lowest level since October 1982, Department of Energy data show, extending a drawdown that has already set one multi-decade record this year.

The reserve held 283.8 million barrels at the end of September, according to the latest DOE figures. The Energy Information Administration put the stockpile at 284.6 million barrels for the week ending September 18, down from 285.0 million barrels the week before and 406.0 million barrels a year earlier. The additional decline to 283.8 million barrels came the following week.

The September draw marks the second time in 2025 that the reserve has set a new multi-decade low. The stockpile first broke below 300 million barrels in early August, a level that also took it beneath its 1983 inventory for the first time in more than four decades.

The pace of the decline is stark. Over the 12 months through September 18, the reserve shed roughly 121.4 million barrels — close to 30% of the stockpile that stood at 406.0 million barrels a year earlier. Week-on-week movements in September ran smaller, with the reserve giving up 400,000 barrels in the week to September 18 and another 800,000 barrels in the week that followed.

For refiners and crude traders, the reserve's trajectory matters on two fronts. First, the SPR has functioned as a physical supply backstop for Gulf Coast refining centers and as a policy tool for stabilizing prices during supply disruptions. A stockpile of 283.8 million barrels cuts the volume available for any future emergency release or exchange, and it narrows the government's room to act in a market shock. Second, the drawdown itself is a source of crude supply to the commercial market: barrels leaving the reserve add to visible availability and can weigh on crude differentials while the releases continue.

The EIA's weekly petroleum status report remains the primary public tracker of the reserve's movements, with the DOE data providing the more current figure through the end of September. The two datasets together show a consistent one-way flow: no reported week in the recent series shows a build back into the reserve.

The reserve has now spent much of 2025 in territory it last occupied during the early 1980s, when the stockpile was still being filled toward its eventual design capacity. The August break below 300 million barrels removed what had stood as a psychological and operational threshold for the program; the September figures confirm the decline continued past that marker rather than stabilizing above it.

The watch item is the refill. The reserve's level will determine the scale and timing of any future repurchase program the Department of Energy may pursue to rebuild stocks, and each weekly EIA release will show whether the drawdown has run its course. Watch the Wednesday petroleum status reports for the first week-over-week increase — that figure, whenever it arrives, will mark the turn from drawdown to replenishment and give the market the first concrete read on the pace of any rebuild.