WASHINGTONG (Reuters) – Member countries of the International Energy Agency besides the United States have agreed to release 60 million barrels of oil from storage, an official from the U.S. government and an IEA member country official told Reuters. The amount will be matched by the United States as part of Washington’s pledge last week to tap 180 million barrels of oil from storage, they added. The massive releases are aimed at cooling prices and easing supply concerns as sanctions and buyer aversion disrupts Russian oil supplies in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. “After around the clock diplomacy by the U.S. and of course our allies and partners, the IEA countries have agreed to release an additional 60 million barrels,” a U.S. official said. “This will be the largest release from both the U.S. and other countries in IEA history. This will supplement our 1 million barrels per day for six months and of course will serve as a bridge until the end of the year when domestic production ramps up.” The move by the U.S.-allied IEA countries, which represent 31 mostly industrialized countries but not Russia, would be their second coordinated release in a month and would be the fifth in the agency’s history to confront oil market outages.
Oil turns to losses, drops over 2.5% after US data
Crude oil stockpiles in the United States rose by 2.4 million to 412.4 million barrels in the week ending April 1, the US Energy Information Administration revealed in its weekly report published on Wednesday. Total commercial petroleum inventories went up by 5.2 million barrels in comparison to the week before. Crude oil refinery inputs averaged 15.9 million barrels per day, up by 35,000 barrels per day in contrast with the past week’s average. Refineries operated at 92.5% of their capacity. Meanwhile, gasoline production improved and averaged 9.1 million barrels per day. Crude oil imports averaged 6.3 million barrels per day, a rise of 41,000 barrels per day compared to the previous week. Adding to the worries, the number of coronavirus cases in China’s city of Shanghai rose by a record 17,077 during the last day, reheating worries about the demand for crude from one of the world’s largest oil consumers. NN: reality is these releases are a sick joke. we are in the slowest time of the year for oil demand. Heating season is over and driving season has not started yet. But in a warning to what is coming jet fuel inventories are running very low. And we could see shortages.. Now they are flying soon they will be driving and demand will soar. Chinese lock downs will end in a matter of weeks