Canada supplying 23.6 million oil barrels under IEA release plan

Canada has committed to supplying 23.6 million barrels of oil as part of a larger International Energy Agency plan to help stabilize energy markets as the war in the Middle East continues.

The announcement from Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson’s office late Friday comes two days after he said Canada would “do its part” to lower the cost of oil globally.

The IEA said earlier this week it would make 400 million barrels of oil available to the world market. That’s the biggest release in the Paris-based agency’s history and more than double the nearly 183 million barrels it unlocked after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 — the record at the time.

The IEA has 32 members, including Canada. Its reserves were established in 1974 after the Arab oil embargo, and member countries currently hold more than 1.2 billion barrels of public emergency oil stocks, with a further 600 million barrels of industry stocks held under government obligation.

“Canada meets our IEA responsibilities through our role as a major producer and exporter of oil to the world. We are the world’s fourth largest oil supplier, and the largest within the IEA,” Hodgson’s office said.

The IEA stipulates that members set aside enough oil to cover 90 days worth of net imports. But Canada is a net exporter — it sends the vast majority of its product to the United States and some to Asia via the Trans Mountain pipeline — so it is not beholden to that rule.