IEA says members to release 400 mn barrels from oil reserves

Paris: The International Energy Agency (IEA) said Wednesday its member countries would unlock 400 million barrels of oil from their reserves to ease t...

Paris: The International Energy Agency (IEA) said Wednesday its member countries would unlock 400 million barrels of oil from their reserves to ease the impact of the Middle East conflict, the biggest such release ever.

"The oil market challenges we are facing are unprecedented in scale, therefore I am very glad that IEA member countries have responded with an emergency collective action of unprecedented size," IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said.

The IEA-coordinated release exceeded the 182 million barrels of oil that member countries of the Paris-based global energy body released in 2022 when Russian invaded Ukraine.

"The emergency stocks will be made available to the market over a timeframe that is appropriate to the national circumstances of each member country and will be supplemented by additional emergency measures by some countries," the IEA said.

The announcement came as leaders of the Group of Seven advanced economies discussed the widespread economic fallout from the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, now into its second week, at a video conference meeting chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron.