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It's worse than that: once we start refilling it we bring back all of the demand that releasing oil from the SPR kicked into the future.

It follows that if either 1.) demand drops or 2.) supply increases the refilling will create exactly the same problem in the future that releasing oil from the SPR was supposed to solve.

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> It's worse than that: once we start refilling it we bring back all of the demand that releasing oil from the SPR kicked into the future.

Translating this into HNese, your argument suggests that disk drive caching shouldn't work. The answer is you can fill your reserves at a much lower rate than you empty them, taking advantage of many small windows.

It will set a floor on oil prices, keeping them from going as low as they otherwise would have. Some have argued that this is a good thing, since it will help to stabilize the "boom/bust" nature of the industry -- guaranteeing that oil producers continue to invest in expanding supply.

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