IEA Reveals Details Of 182.7 Million Barrel Oil Stocks Release

Member countries of the International Energy Agency will be releasing a total of 182.7 million barrels of oil from emergency stocks over six months, of which 74 percent will come from public stocks and the remaining 26 percent from lowering of national stockholding obligations set on industry, the IEA said on Friday in an update on the oil stocks release.  

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the IEA members, including the United States, have announced releases from Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPRs) to try to tame soaring oil and gasoline prices and offset the gap that unwanted Russian oil due to sanctions of self-sanctioning would leave.

IEA members announced in early April they would release an additional 120 million barrels from their emergency oil stocks over a six-month period. The collective action, the largest in IEA history, comes on top of the 62.7 million barrels release agreed upon in March. A total of 60 million barrels of the latest IEA release of 120 million has already been accounted for as part of the 180 million barrel SPR release that the United States announced at the end of March.

Of the 182.7 million barrels, nearly 50 million barrels is in the form of oil products, the IEA said today. Oil products account for 27 percent of the stocks release, while crude is at 133.8 million barrels, or 73 percent of the 183 million barrel release.

Source: IEA

The United States is the biggest contributor, with crude release only, of 90.6 million barrels. Japan, South Korea, Germany, France, the UK, and Spain are also among the biggest contributors to the collective 183 million barrel release.

“Member countries began releasing emergency stocks in March, following the initial IEA decision. And based on the 1 April decision, they will be releasing volumes over the period through to October, according to the specific stockholding system and market needs in each country,” the IEA said on Friday.  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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