The Biden administration is examining releasing even more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The administration already committed to release one million barrels of crude per day into the commercial markets, as part of a 180 million barrel commitment over a six month period. So far this has reduced the nation’s emergency crude stockpile by 67 million barrels, leaving 497.9 million barrels as of June 24th. That is the lowest it has been since 1986.

After completing the release of the additional 100 million barrels already committed to be released, that will bring the total stockpiled volume down to less than 397 million barrels. The Department of Energy announced on June 14th, it would sell 45 million more barrels of oil out of the strategic reserve, with those deliveries scheduled to be made between August 16th and September 30th.

If the administration decides to release even more oil, they will be lowering the Strategic Reserve to levels never seen in all of history.

So far the releases seem to have had little effect on price, as the cost per barrel of US benchmark WTI Crude has risen, now $10 higher than it was when the release was first announced. Meanwhile, over the same period, gasoline has risen from $4.231 per gallon to a high of $5.006 per gallon as of June 13, although it has dropped slightly since then to $4.868 per gallon .