IEA member states have agreed to release 120 million barrels of oil, which it describes as “…the largest stock release in IEA history.”
This is in addition to 62.7 million barrels agreed to be released last month and represents 9% of total emergency reserves.
The release is in response to soaring oil prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement that the collective action “… reflects the determination of member countries to protect the global economy from the social and economic impacts of an oil shock following Russia’s aggression against Ukraine”.
In a statement, the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications said “…NORA (National Oil Reserves Agency) are moving to operationalise the decision to release 451,000 barrels, which is the pro-rata contribution to the international IEA release.”
The release of stocks by the US-allied members of the IEA would be their second coordinated release in a month and would be the fifth in its history to confront oil market disruption. The commitments made by members reached 120 million barrels to be released over a six-month period, the IEA said.
In addition to a 60 million barrels release from the US, Japan, the second biggest contributor, said it would release a record 15 million barrels.
Japan held about 470 million barrels of petroleum reserves at the end of January, equivalent to 236 days of domestic consumption, in state reserves, reserves held by refiners and a joint crude oil storage scheme with producing countries.
New Zealand said it would contribute crude and diesel to the IEA release.
“Our release is made up of around 184,000 barrels of crude oil held in Spain and close to 299,000 barrels of diesel held in the UK,” New Zealand’s minister of energy and resources, Megan Woods, said in a statement.
“There has been a great deal of volatility in global oil markets since the invasion and this further action, coupled with the United States’ move to release 180 million barrels of oil over the next six months, will help to provide some certainty to the market,” she said.
Other major contributors include South Korea, Germany, France, Italy and the UK.
