The US is closing in on deciding whether it will join a global release of up to 60 million barrels of crude oil, including from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as globally could range seeks to dampen the effect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on gas prices at home.
The total number of barrels released globally could range from 50 million to 60 million barrels, senior administration officials and others familiar with the matter said, though sources cautioned that a decision had not yet been finalized and deliberations were still underway Tuesday morning.
Other allies are also expected to dip into their stockpiles in a coordinated effort to bring down energy costs amid the ongoing Russian invasion. They include Germany, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands and other major European countries, as well as Japan and South Korea.
US officials have spent the last several weeks on calls and in meetings with their counterparts in key energy-supplying countries in an effort to secure commitments to backfill any market disruptions. The effort included an in-person visit to Saudi Arabia from two senior administration officials to discuss the need to address the impact on oil markets. The US informed Saudi Arabia ahead of the oil reserve announcement.
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The White House has not laid out any specific commitments and White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to say whether any specific request for supply increases had been made when asked this week during a briefing.
Biden signaled his intent to release the oil last week.
“We are actively working with countries around the world to evaluate a collective release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves of major energy-consuming countries. And the United States will release additional barrels of oil as conditions warrant,” he said.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency is holding a last-minute meeting Tuesday on oil supply with the goal of “stabilizing markets,” it said earlier this week. The meeting with be chaired by US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
Some background: Tapping the SPR – the stockpile of 600 million barrels of crude oil stored in underground salt caverns in Louisiana and Texas – generally has only a limited effect on gas prices because of how much oil can be released at a time, but would act as a political sign that Biden is confronting the problem.
