WASHINGTON, July 3 -- When the next oil shock arrives, the United States may not be able to answer it at full strength. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the world's largest emergency crude stockpile, stood at 325.655 million barrels as of June 26, the lowest level since May 1983. That number alone would qualify as an alert. More than a quarter of that oil is physically inaccessible, blocked by failing pumps, corroded pipes, and underground salt caverns that have deformed beyond their operational parameters, according to internal government documents reviewed by Sputnik.

The finding means the actual emergency capacity of the American energy backstop is smaller, and slower to deploy, than any headline barrel count conveys.

The reserve is ...