Strategic Oil Reserves Release Will Reduce Prices – Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump said he would release strategic oil reserves to stabilise rapidly rising prices, adding that the reserves would be replenished afterwards.
“We’ll do that, and then we’ll fill it up,” Trump told news station Local 12 on Wednesday, saying the move would push prices down.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) had earlier announced it would release a record amount of oil onto global markets.
The 32 member countries, including the United States, will release a total of 400 million barrels of crude, according to an IEA statement.
“I can now announce that IEA countries have unanimously decided to launch the release of emergency oil stocks in our agency’s history. IEA countries will be making 400 million barrels of oil available to the market to offset the supply lost through the effective closure of the strait,” said Fatih Birol during a press conference on the situation in global energy markets.
Birol described the move as a “major action aiming to alleviate the immediate impacts of the disruption in markets.”
“But to be clear, the most important thing for a return to stable flows of oil and gas is the resumption of transit to the state of Hormuz,” he added.
He noted that the IEA would continue monitoring global markets closely and could recommend further actions to its member countries if necessary.
Birol underlined that the agency was created more than five decades ago with the mission of safeguarding global energy security.
“It is what we are doing today for oil markets and what we have been and will continue to entire energy sector,” he said.
Earlier, Birol revealed that member countries currently hold more than 1.2 billion barrels of public emergency oil stocks. In addition, about 600 million barrels of industry stocks are held under government obligations.
The U.S. Department of Energy said it plans to release 172 million barrels starting next week over a period of roughly four months.
According to the government, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the world’s largest emergency stockpile of crude oil. It was set up primarily to mitigate the effects of supply crises and meet international obligations. OPEC Crude Oil Production Rises 164,000bpd in February
