The International Energy Agency announced on Wednesday that it would supply the oil market with an additional 60 million barrels of crude from its emergency reserves. The Paris-based IEA, which monitors energy supplies for the world’s major developed economies, said details would be released soon.
The news was enough for oil prices to fall 2.5%. US oil fell below $100 a barrel, and Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell to $104 a barrel.
Still, it will take time for that extra supply to hit the market, and contributing countries will need to find buyers for their oil. Over the course of the next six months, the release of 240 million barrels of reserved oil would result in an average of about 1.3 million barrels per day.
Russia supplies about 40% of the European Union’s natural gas imports and about 27% and 46% of its imported oil and coal, respectively.
doubling
In a statement on Friday, the IEA said energy ministers from its 31 member countries “reiterate their concerns about the energy security impacts of Russia’s egregious actions and express support for sanctions imposed by the international community in response.” “.
IEA members include the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia.
“The prospect of large-scale disruptions in Russian oil production threatens to create a global oil supply shock,” the IEA said in the statement, noting that Russia is currently the third largest oil producer and the world’s largest exporter. world.
US Presidential Coordinator for Global Energy Security Amos Hochstein told CNN on Wednesday that the United States and Europe are working “around the clock” to make sure the pressure on Vladimir Putin continues, but not can mitigate all costs.
“President Biden has made it very clear that when you are in a war like this started by Putin and Russia, there will be costs. We can’t mitigate all the costs, but what we’re doing is working together as an international community to do everything we can to mitigate,” he told CNN’s Becky Anderson in an interview.
Hochstein highlighted the unity between the United States and Europe in the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But he said both sides do not need to enact the same sanctions package, due to “different circumstances,” alluding to Europe’s heavy reliance on Russian gas.
— Mark Thompson, Matt Egan, Zeena Saifi and Chris Liakos of CNN Business contributed to this report.
