IEA nations add 60 million barrels to Biden’s oil-stock release

(Bloomberg) — U.S. allies in the International Energy Agency will deploy 60 million barrels of oil from their emergency stockpiles, bolstering the 180-million-barrel release of crude reserves already announced by President Joe Biden, according to people familiar with the matter.

The coordinate action by major energy consumers is intended to soften the economic fallout from a surge in energy prices since the invasion of Ukraine. Economic sanctions and an unofficial buyers strike have curtailed Russian oil exports, resulting in the biggest energy supply disruption in decades. 

The IEA expects Russia’s oil production to slump by a quarter this month, leaving a huge gap of 3 million barrels a day in global energy supplies. Tapping emergency reserves will go some way to fill this gap, but the market will remain tight as OPEC+ refuses to open its taps any faster. 

West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, remained above $101 a barrel on Wednesday, having risen 35% this year. 

Officially, the coordinated IEA stockpile release will amount to 120 million barrels of oil -- half from the U.S. and half from other members, the people said. The Biden administration will be independently releasing 120 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, bringing the total to 240 million worldwide, the people said. 

IEA members agreed on Friday to make another round of releases from their emergency fuel reserves. The timing and volumes of the releases from each country are due to be announced this week. 

This will be the second coordinated deployment of oil stockpiles in just a few weeks. A month ago, IEA members agreed on a 61.7-million barrel release, with 30 million coming from the U.S. and 2.2 million from the U.K. It had a limited effect on prices, which rose as high as $139.13 a barrel in London on March 7.