Strategic Implications

It struck me as slightly odd to hear a little snippet that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be potentially tapped to deal with the outage of supply from Alaska due to the pipeline repairs.

Because in other past times of high prices or supply crunches, the Reserve was never touched.

But I didn't think further of what it might mean.

The blogger Aristides has some fascinating thoughts here:

BP, based in Britain, said late on Sunday that it had begun closing the Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska after discovering a small pipeline spill in a move that will slash production by 400,000 barrels per day.

Firstly, is it possible that we purposefully turned off a large supply of oil from oil fields we control?

Well, we know an Iran-related turn off would shock the system with Surprise and Uncertainty.
...
War with Iran would cause a major oil disruption. We could be adjusting in advance.

So we're preparing for war?

We could be. If we are, the strategic reserve would be an important step. And this way it doesn’t cause stress on public perception and doesn’t tip our hand to the Iranians.

I sure hope we're that devious.