The International Energy Agency said Wednesday its member countries would unlock 400 million barrels of oil from their reserves to ease the impact of the Middle East war, the biggest such release ever.
“The oil market challenges we are facing are unprecedented in scale, therefore I am very glad that IEA member countries have responded with an emergency collective action of unprecedented size,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said.
The IEA-coordinated release exceeded the 182 million barrels of oil that member countries of the Paris-based global energy body released in 2022 when Russian leader Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
“The emergency stocks will be made available to the market over a timeframe that is appropriate to the national circumstances of each member country and will be supplemented by additional emergency measures by some countries,” the IEA said.
The announcement came as leaders of the Group of Seven advanced economies discussed the widespread economic fallout from the US-Israeli war with Iran, now into its second week, at a video conference meeting chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Earlier Wednesday, Japan — whose strategic oil reserves are among the world’s largest — and Germany said they would tap into their oil reserves.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Japan would release reserves as early as Monday, while Germany’s Economy and Energy Minister Katherina Reiche said her country planned to do the same, without specifying a date.
“Without waiting for a formal decision on coordinated international stock releases with the IEA, Japan has decided to take the lead in easing supply and demand in the international energy market by releasing strategic reserves as early as the 16th of this month,” Takaichi told reporters.
“Given Japan’s exceptionally high dependence on the Middle East (for oil) and as we will be severely impacted, we plan to utilise Japan’s strategic petroleum reserves,” she said.
Reiche said a total of 2.4 million tons would be released.
Source: Insider Paper
