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Speaker 1: with today's question, what is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? The
Speaker 1: Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the United States is emergency oil stockpile,
Speaker 1: and it's the largest emergency petroleum supply in the world.
Speaker 1: The reserve stores about five hundred seventy million barrels of
Speaker 1: crude oil in underground salt caverns at four sites along
Speaker 1: the Gulf of Mexico. A barrel contains forty two gallons
Speaker 1: or a hundred fifty nine liters of oil, so we're
Speaker 1: talking about more than twenty billion gallons of oil stored underground.
Speaker 1: To create the caverns, workers drill into a salt dome
Speaker 1: and then put water into the hold to dissolve the salt.
Speaker 1: Each cavern is about two thousand feet deep and holds
Speaker 1: about ten million barrels of oil. The government uses salt
Speaker 1: caverns because it costs less than storing the oil in
Speaker 1: above ground tanks and because the pressure from the earth
Speaker 1: will seal up any leaks that might develop. The Energy
Speaker 1: Department also says that the temperature difference in the caverns,
Speaker 1: which are about two thousand feet below the surface of
Speaker 1: the earth, keeps the oil circulating so that the petroleum
Speaker 1: maintains its quality. The government chose to put the oil
Speaker 1: near the Gulf of Mexico because there are so many
Speaker 1: oil refineries nearby and because shipping is readily available. It
Speaker 1: costs the federal government twenty one million dollars a year
Speaker 1: to maintain the oil reserve, and about people work for
Speaker 1: the oil reserve. About a hundred twenty five of those
Speaker 1: are government employees and the rest are contractors. The United
Speaker 1: States started the petroleum Reserve in nineteen seventy five after
Speaker 1: oil supplies were cut off during the nineteen seventy three
Speaker 1: seventy four oil embargo. The embargo was a shock to
Speaker 1: the U s economy, and the government decided that the
Speaker 1: country should never be caught short again. The United States
Speaker 1: uses about twenty million barrels of oil every day, and
Speaker 1: more than half of that oil comes from imports. A
Speaker 1: reserve of sixty days worth of petroleum could keep the
Speaker 1: oil flowing in case of a cut off. The last
Speaker 1: time that the United States used oil from the reserve
Speaker 1: was during the Persian Gulf War in n to keep
Speaker 1: oil plentiful and prices stable during that war. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, because it how
Speaker 1: staff works dot com. Audible dot com is the leading
Speaker 1: provider of digital audio books and spoken word. With over
Speaker 1: one tho titles to choose from. Audible lets you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite books anywhere, anytime. Go to Audible podcast
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