Status of Strategic Petroleum Reserve Activities as of September 30, 1984

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reported on the Department of Energy's (DOE) progress in filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and in complying with applicable law during the fourth quarter of fiscal year (FY) 1984.

GAO found that: (1) $459.2 million were appropriated in FY 1984 for SPR facilities development; (2) DOE added 17.4 million barrels of oil during the quarter; (3) DOE paid about $898 million for oil acquisition and transportation, had unpaid obligations of about $542 million, and had about $15 million in unobligated funds available for additional oil purchases; (4) the storage capacity development program proceeded without any major problems; (5) DOE approved the schedule to implement the pipeline construction and marine terminal modification projects; (6) DOE extended for 1 year its contracts for operations and maintenance and for security; (7) DOE reduced the corrective maintenance backlog and generally achieved its FY 1984 goal of no more than a 30-day backlog; and (8) DOE continued making progress in implementing the recommendations of two internal reports on the SPR program.