Countries agree on historic release of crude reserves to lower oil and gasoline prices | CNN Business

Member countries of the International Energy Agency unanimously agreed Wednesday to release 400 million barrels of oil into the global market – the largest release of emergency oil stocks in history – in a drastic move aimed at shoring up crude supplies and capping a surge in prices caused by the conflict in the Middle East. “IEA countries will be making 400 million barrels of oil available… to the market to offset the supply lost through the effective closure of the Strait (of Hormuz),” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a live broadcast. “This is a major action aiming to alleviate the immediate impacts of the disruption in markets. But, to be clear, the most important thing for a return to stable flows of oil and (natural) gas is the resumption of transit through the Strait of Hormuz,” Birol added. The record amount far surpasses the 182 million barrels of oil that countries put onto the market in two tranches in 2022 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The United States, an IEA member, then sold a further 180 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve over a six-month period that year. Despite the eye-catching size of the late