02/03/2022 by OilStoreAdministrator
Speaking to reporters recently, the United States’ President, Joe Biden, said that the country was working with other countries to coordinate releases of strategic oil reserves.
In the statement, he said:
“We are actively working with countries around the world to elevate collective release from the strategic petroleum reserves of major energy-consuming countries. The United States will release additional barrels of oil as conditions warrant.”
The release of a large quantity of additional crude oil may help calm the oil markets. Prices were already relatively high as the demand for fuel and other petroleum-based products, such as Mobil Vactra slideway oil and petrochemicals, increased as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic lessened, but prices broke through the $100 per barrel threshold following recent events in Ukraine.
Some 1.5 billion barrels of oil are believed to be held by governments in emergency reserves, with 582.4 million in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve alone. Reuters quotes a source familiar with the matter as saying that exploratory talks through the International Energy Agency (IEA) were at an early stage. The most recent large-scale coordinated release was in 2011, when the US and other countries released 60 million barrels following the outbreak of civil war in Libya.
The US already organised a coordinated release with China and other oil-consuming Asian countries last year. It is unclear if China will participate in further releases, but Australia and Japan have already signalled their willingness to cooperate with other IEA members in releasing reserves if oil supply comes under pressure.
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