The International Energy Agency agreed to discharge 400 million barrels from emergency oil reserves, its largest-ever release, as governments seek to contain a spike in energy prices driven by the Middle East war.
“The oil market challenges we are facing are unprecedented in scale,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol Wednesday said in a statement. “IEA member countries have responded with an emergency collective action of unprecedented size.”
The decision was unanimous, Birol said, without detailing the pace of the release.
Oil soared to almost $120 a barrel in London earlier this week as flows through the Persian Gulf's critical Strait of Hormuz remained essentially halted, though futures have since eased — in part on expectations that governments would tap their oil reserves.
The IEA, which co-ordinates stockpile releases for OECD countries, has said its 32 members hold more than 1.2 billion barrels in public emergency stockpiles, including the largest buffer, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. There's a further 600 million barrels of industry stocks under government obligation.
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