President MENSA Hints At Tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

The strategic petroleum reserve, or SPR, currently holds about 727 million barrels of crude oil and was established to provide a short term buffer for supply disruptions caused by wars, natural disasters and the like.

The newest natural disaster: falling poll numbers!

President Obama’s recent hints at tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be just the third major sale since the creation of the emergency oil reserve and the only time a drawdown didn’t involve a major domestic production disruption or a war.

But, hey, 727 million barrels is a lot of oil, right? Ummm, no. We use around 18.5 million barrels a day. In keeping with Ace's no math for teh morons rule, that's about 40 days' worth.

So what's the plan here, Barry? Oil prices are built around long-term supply and demand projections. 40 days of U.S. consumption won't move the needle. Oh, and that SPR ... it has to be refilled:

“Releasing oil from the SPR when there is not a disruption in supply would be nothing short of catastrophic,” said Brian Kelly of Brian Kelly Capital. “It would indicate panic within the administration over the state of the economy, but more importantly it would take the markets less than a second to realize the US will need to fill up the tanks again.”

“Oil would soar,” added Kelly.

Duh!

Here's a suggestion: Don't tap the SPR. Tap ANWR.

posted by Andy at 06:53 PM

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