(The Center Square) - U.S. crude oil inventories, including commercial stockpiles and the nation's emergency reserves, fell by 16 million barrels last week to their lowest combined level in more than two decades, as strong demand for exports of American petroleum products continued in world markets.
Commercial crude oil stockpiles fell by 8 million barrels to a 22-year low of 434 million barrels in the week ended June 1, the U.S. Energy Department reported on Wednesday. At the same time, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, stored primarily in four underground salt cavern systems in Texas and Louisiana, also fell by 8 million barrels in the week ended June 1, dropping to a 28-month low of 357 million barrels, the data showed.
Average U.S. gasoline prices have trended sharply lower in the last two weeks, dropping from $4.48 a gallon to $4.22 a gallon on Friday, providing some relief to drivers.
Although U.S. refineries produced a robust 9.4 million barrels per day of gasoline in the week ended June 1, only 215 million barrels of the motor fuel are currently held in commercial inventories, the lowest at this time of year since June 2014, energy department data shows.
In a bid to combat surging global energy prices, the Trump administration agreed in March to disburse 172 million barrels of oil from the nation’s reserve stockpile as part of a 400-million-barrel emergency release coordinated by the International Energy Agency across its 32 member nations.
In the United States, only about 50 million barrels of the planned 172 million barrels of crude oil have been released so far, noted Eric Smith, associate director of the Tulane Energy Institute.
Smith, formerly an operations officer at a private firm contracted to manage the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, told the Center Square that the remainder of the planned 172-million-barrel release will enter the region’s refining system in the weeks ahead.
"People sometimes forget the transport ships aren't just sitting at the dock waiting for someone to fill them up," said Smith. "It takes substantial time to contract vessels, secure clearances, and coordinate which specific crude grades to draw down."
International crude oil buyers, especially in Asia, are scrambling to replace supplies stranded in the Persian Gulf, and many have turned to U.S. producers, Energy Department data shows. In the seven days ended June 1, U.S. crude oil shipments jumped to 5.9 million barrels per day from 4.4 million barrels per day in the week prior.
U.S. crude oil exports reached an all-time high of 6.0 million barrels a day in the week ended May 15, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. In February 2026, before the outbreak of the conflict, U.S. crude oil exports averaged 4.16 million barrels per day.
Smith said draining the emergency reserves “doesn't solve the problem, it just delays the impact." The professor noted acute global shortages of premium refined products like kerosene and jet fuel. "Other countries are much more exposed to this Middle East downturn than the U.S. is, so they are aggressively pulling finished products out of our regional refineries."
To keep pace, U.S. refineries ran hot in the latest week, operating at 94.7% of capacity—well above the typical 90% to 92% seasonal average—as 16.9 million barrels of crude oil was processed.
Historically, summer driving demand peaks early to mid-August along with maximum tropical activity and increased heat stress on the machinery at refineries, heaping multiple vulnerabilities on energy supply chains. Smith noted, however, that the threat of storm-driven refining disasters is often misunderstood.
"Our regional refineries are incredibly robust installations that rarely suffer direct structural damage from hurricanes," Smith said, noting that utilities like Entergy have heavily hardened power grids. "The real vulnerability during an August storm isn't the physical plant; it's the surrounding infrastructure. If roads flood and power lines drop, refinery hands simply cannot get to the facility because they are stuck tending to their own homes, said Smith.
Several large refineries in Louisiana and Texas have delayed maintenance periods planned well in advance as they seek to profit while prices are high rather than take processing units offline for scheduled downtime.
PBF Chalmette in Louisiana and TotalEnergies Port Arthur in Texas, two of the Gulf Coast's largest gasoline producers, are now operating units past their scheduled service windows, according to news reports.
Smith said the Trump administration’s decision to waive Jones Act restrictions on energy cargoes was the silver lining for constrained U.S. energy markets. The temporary waivers have effectively added about 35 foreign-flagged vessels to the U.S. fleet, said Smith, with tankers primarily moving cargo from the Gulf Coast through the Panama Canal to California.
"Record U.S. exports are helping keep global markets well supplied right now," Phil Flynn, a senior energy analyst with the Price Futures Group, said in an interview on Fox Business on Thursday. Flynn noted that the heavy international draw on American supplies is leaving localized fuel markets everywhere more vulnerable to supply shocks.
