The International Energy Agency announced Wednesday it would supply the oil market with 60 million additional barrels of crude from its emergency stockpiles. The Paris-based IEA, which monitors energy supplies for the world’s leading developed economies, said details would be forthcoming.
The news was enough to send oil prices down about 2.5%. US oil tumbled below $100 a barrel, and Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell to $104 a barrel.
Still, it will take time for that added supply to come to market, and the contributing countries will need to find buyers for their oil. Over the course of the next six months, the release of 240 million barrels of reserved oil would result in an average of roughly 1.3 million barrels per day.
Russia supplies about 40% of the European Union’s imports of natural gas, and about 27% and 46% of its imported oil and coal respectively.
Doubling down
In a statement Friday, the IEA said energy ministers from its 31 member countries “reiterate their concerns about the energy security impacts of the egregious actions by Russia and voiced support for sanctions imposed by the international community in response.”
IEA members include the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia.
“The prospect of large-scale disruptions to Russian oil production is threatening to create a global oil supply shock,” the IEA said in the statement, noting that Russia is currently the world’s third-largest oil producer and the largest exporter.
US Presidential Coordinator for Global Energy Security Amos Hochstein told CNN earlier Wednesday that the United States and Europe are working “around the clock” to make sure pressure continues to build on Vladimir Putin, but that all costs can’t be mitigated.
“President Biden has been very clear that when you’re in a war like this initiated by Putin and Russia, there are going to be costs. We can’t mitigate all the costs, but what we’re doing is working together as an international community to do as much as we can to mitigate,” he told CNN’s Becky Anderson in an interview.
Hochstein highlighted the unity between the US and Europe in the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But he said both sides don’t need to enact the same sanctions package, because of “different circumstances” — alluding to Europe’s heavy reliance on Russian gas.
— CNN Business’ Mark Thompson, Matt Egan, Zeena Saifi and Chris Liakos contributed to this report.
Read More:Western countries will dump 60 million more barrels of emergency oil on the market
2022-04-06 18:03:00