1. Which countries charge for oil reserves, and how much per litre?
Neither the UK nor the US puts a reserve charge on a litre of fuel, so neither publishes a per-litre cost; in the euro countries that do publish one, it is usually below one cent a litre, from about 0.3 cents in Germany (EBV) to 0.8 cents in the Netherlands (COVA). Ireland is the outlier: its regular NORA levy is 2 cents a litre, although it has been cut to 0.1 cents in 2026. Switzerland quotes 0.15 rappen a litre for diesel, a figure in francs. Behind the numbers sit very different models: a compulsory contribution to an agency in Germany, a fee for a service in France, a levy collected with excise duty in the Netherlands, a company obligation in the UK and a line in the federal budget in the US. The table lists only published values with their unit and period. Where we converted a value ourselves, the cell says “own calculation” or “conversion”.
| Country | Model: who pays | Charge (unit, period) | Per litre | Source, date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Obligation on companies; no agency | no levy; cost called “non-transparent” by the government | no figure published | DECC, 13 Aug 2013 |
| United States | Federal budget | SPR operations: $213.39 million enacted (FY2024 and FY2025), $206.325 million requested for FY2026 | no charge on fuel | DOE, June 2025 |
| Ireland | NORA levy per litre | regular 2 cents; cut to 0.1 cents in 2026, first until 1 June (gov.ie), extended to the end of October 2026 per the Irish Examiner | 2 cents regular, currently 0.1 cents | gov.ie; Irish Examiner, 27 Aug 2026 |
| Germany | Compulsory contribution to the EBV agency, built into the retail price | €3.56 per tonne of petrol, diesel, heating oil, jet fuel; current rate | about 0.3 cents (EBV); own calculation with density: diesel 0.29 to 0.30, heating oil 0.29 to 0.31 | EBV, Mar 2026 |
| France | Fee paid by operators to the CPSSP, which passes on SAGESS costs without a margin | 2026 rates not found; SAGESS costs about €500 million a year | about 0.75 cents (2025, SAGESS) | National Assembly, 8 Apr 2026 |
| Netherlands | Levy of the COVA agency, collected with excise duty | 0.8 cents a litre (€8 per 1,000 litres), set by the stockholding act (Wva) | 0.8 cents, “included in the fuel price at the pump” (COVA) | COVA, 23 Sep 2026 |
| Belgium | ASEVA contribution (formerly APETRA); a fixed item in the official maximum price | Q2 2026: gasoil €11.68, petrol €10.25 per 1,000 litres; Q3 not found | gasoil 1.168 cents, petrol 1.025 cents (conversion) | FPS Economy, 13 Mar 2026 |
| Spain | Quotas paid to CORES by firms with a minimum-stock obligation | 2026: gasoils €0.0891, petrol €0.0829 per m³ per day of stocks | no official figure; own calculation assuming CORES holds 42 days: diesel 0.374 cents, petrol 0.348 cents | Orden TED/1525/2025 |
| Italy | OCSIT contribution from all sellers, covering only the central agency's costs | €50 per firm plus €1.546721 per tonne (2022 settlement, latest rate found) | no official figure; own calculation with density: diesel 0.127 to 0.131 cents | decree of 25 Oct 2023 |
| Austria | Tariff of the ELG company for obligations it takes over from importers | €42.80 per tonne of “oil units” (per 1,000 units) a year, 2026/27 (2025/26: €41.23), excl. VAT, same for all product groups | no official figure published; we do not estimate one | ELG, 23 Sep 2026 |
| Switzerland | Guarantee fund contributions paid by importers to Carbura | 2025: diesel CHF 1.50/m³, jet fuel 7.00, petrol none, heating oil −25.00 (a refund, approved until March 2029); 2026 rates not found | diesel 0.15 rappen (Die Volkswirtschaft); heating oil −2.5 rappen (conversion) | Carbura, 2025 report |
| Japan | Petroleum and coal tax on importers, paid into a special energy account | ¥2,800 per kilolitre (per Japanese Wikipedia) | ¥2.8 of tax (conversion), not the reserve's cost | Wikipedia (ja), 23 Sep 2026 |
Densities used for our own calculations (at 15 °C, per Wikipedia): diesel 0.820 to 0.845 kg/L (citing EN 590), heating oil 0.820 to 0.860 kg/L (citing the GESTIS substance database). Values in euros per 1,000 litres, euros per cubic metre or francs per cubic metre need no density, only division. We do not derive a per-litre figure for Austria.
We deliberately do not add the countries up. A contribution, a tariff, a tax and a company obligation measure different things, and we found no study of the total cost of oil stockholding in the EU. How the underlying volumes are set is explained on How it is counted: the 90-day rule, and how many days each country currently holds is on the Oil Reserves Monitor overview.
2. Who pays for oil reserves in the UK and the US?
In the UK the oil companies pay and in the US the taxpayer does: Britain has no stockholding agency and no levy, while the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is funded through the federal budget. Under the UK's Compulsory Stocking Obligation, suppliers above 50,000 tonnes a year must hold stocks themselves (IEA). The government's 2013 impact assessment described the cost as “non-transparent and largely woven into every day operating costs” and said it “might be passed on to end consumers”. It modelled new storage at £242 a tonne to build and £31 a tonne a year to run, assumptions rather than actual costs. No current official per-litre estimate exists. More on the British system: United Kingdom: the stocking obligation.
In the US, the DOE's budget request for fiscal 2026 puts SPR operations at $206.325 million, of which $178.498 million is for facilities and $27.827 million for management, after $213.39 million enacted in each of the two previous years. We have not verified the final 2026 appropriation. Over its lifetime the reserve has cost about $25.7 billion: $5 billion for facilities and $20.7 billion for crude, bought at an average of $29.70 a barrel (DOE). Salt caverns are far cheaper to build than tanks: the DOE puts their historical capital cost at about $3.50 a barrel, against $15 to $18 for above-ground tanks. The current fill level is tracked on US Strategic Petroleum Reserve level.
3. What does the reserve charge add to a fill-up or a heating oil delivery?
At Ireland's regular NORA levy of 2 cents a litre, a 50-litre fill-up carries €1.00 for the national oil reserve; at the reduced 2026 rate of 0.1 cents it carries 5 cents (own calculation). The levy is set per litre: 50 × €0.02 = €1.00, and 50 × €0.001 = €0.05. Dublin presented the cut as pump-price relief: together with tax cuts, it took 22 cents off a litre of diesel and 17 cents off a litre of petrol (gov.ie). The reduction took effect on 1 April 2026, according to Irish press reports, and was first due to run until 1 June 2026 (gov.ie); according to the Irish Examiner (27 August 2026), it now lasts until the end of October.
For comparison, the same 50 litres carry about 15 cents in Germany (0.3 cents a litre per the EBV), 37.5 cents in France (0.75 cents per SAGESS), 40 cents in the Netherlands (0.8 cents per COVA) and 58.4 cents in Belgium at the second-quarter 2026 ASEVA rate for the gasoil category, €11.68 per 1,000 litres. For 2,000 litres of heating oil, Germany's EBV charge comes to about €6 and France's SAGESS cost to about €15. Switzerland's heating oil rate is negative (−25 francs per cubic metre in 2025, approved until March 2029), so the same 2,000 litres earn a credit of 50 francs if importers and dealers pass it on in full. All are our own calculations and assume the full cost reaches the price. In the UK and the US there is nothing to calculate: the cost sits in company margins or the federal budget. Our pass-through methodology shows how costs travel into your price.
4. Will oil reserves cost more after the 2026 releases?
There is no firm answer yet: some agencies face higher borrowing and buy-back costs, while the US and France set up their 2026 releases so that the barrels come back without a new purchase. The case for higher costs is clearest in Germany. The EBV finances its stocks with loans, about €2.1 billion at the end of 2025, receives no state funding and covers running costs of about €300 million a year from member contributions (EBV, March 2026). It has not yet published what it earned from the 2026 release, and if it has to buy the oil back at higher prices, its borrowing rises.
On the other side, the US exchanges are due to bring back about 200 million barrels within a year, 20% more than were drawn, “at no cost to the taxpayer”, according to the DOE; the costs of drawdown and transport are built into the premium the borrowers pay. France lent products “volume pour volume”, so borrowers return the same amount (SAGESS hearing, 8 April 2026). The cost structure matters too: of SAGESS's roughly €500 million a year, 75% goes on storage, 23.5% on financing and 1.5% on running the company. Storage is paid for tanks and caverns rather than for the oil itself, so a higher purchase price works mainly through the smaller financing share (our reading). Ireland, meanwhile, cut its levy in 2026 rather than raising it. The timing and cost of refilling are tracked on Refilling the reserves in 2027.
5. Who decides how big the reserve charge is?
In the US, Congress decides through the annual budget the DOE requests; in the UK nobody sets a charge, because the government only decides how much oil the companies must hold. In Ireland, Minister O'Brien commenced the order that brought the 2026 cut in the NORA levy into effect (gov.ie), after the President had signed the National Oil Reserves Agency (Amendment) Bill on 26 March 2026. Elsewhere in Europe the rules vary. Germany's EBV applies a single rate per tonne, worked out from its expected funding needs divided by the expected volumes; its advisory board sets the rate and the economy ministry approves it (Erdölbevorratungsgesetz, sections 23 onwards). Austria's law requires the ELG tariff to cover the cost of the reserve. Belgium's energy directorate recalculates the ASEVA contribution every quarter and publishes it at least 15 days before the quarter starts.
Spain fixed its 2026 CORES quotas by ministerial order (Orden TED/1525/2025), Italy sets the OCSIT contribution by ministerial decree, and the Netherlands writes its levy into its stockholding act. Japan is the hardest case to pin down: its petroleum and coal tax of ¥2,800 per kilolitre flows into a special energy account that pays for more than stockpiling, according to Japanese Wikipedia, and we found no figure for the cost of the state stockpile itself. For a US or UK household the practical answer is the same: no line on the bill shows what the reserve costs you.
How to cite: Global Oil Shock (Jörg Dässler), “Who Pays for Oil Reserves? Cost per Litre by Country”, as of 23 Sep 2026, https://globaloilshock.com/en/strategic-oil-reserves/who-pays/