Strategic Petroleum Reserve

The Land Acquisition Section secured sites for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. President Ford established the Reserve with the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), signed on December 22, 1975. On July 21, 1977, the first shipment of oil, approximately 412,000 barrels from Saudi Arabia, was delivered to the Reserve. Maintained by the Department of Energy, the Reserve is the largest emergency supply of oil in the world, with a capacity to hold up to 727 million barrels of oil.