11/03/26
Trump to decide 'whether' to join IEA oil release
Trump to decide 'whether' to join IEA oil release
Washington, 11 March (Argus) — President Donald Trump will decide "whether the
US participates" in the coordinated release of 400mn bl of emergency oil stocks
that IEA members approved on Wednesday, US interior secretary Doug Burgum said.
The 32 member countries of the IEA, which includes the US, unanimously voted in
support of the largest-ever oil release in response to disruptions to supplies
arising from the US-Israel war with Iran. The planned release would represent a
third of the IEA members' 1.2bn bl in reserves, but Burgum suggested that US
participation was not yet decided. "I think what you're hearing out of the IEA
today is reasonable on their part, but clearly whether the US participates is up
to President Trump, he'll make the final decision on that," Burgum said in an
interview on CNBC. Trump has yet to rule out a release from the US Strategic
Petroleum Reserve (SPR), but a lack of US participation in a coordinated oil
release would be unprecedented. The US has the largest emergency oil reserves of
any IEA member — the SPR holds 415.4mn bl of crude — and it has participated in
every coordinated release since the IEA was created. Japan and the UK have
already committed to releasing 80mn bl and 13.5mn bl, respectively, in the
coordinated release. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for
comment. The US Interior Department and the US Department of Energy, which
operates the SPR, also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump has recently said he was aware that launching military strikes on Iran
would cause oil prices to rise, but he has downplayed the effect on US
consumers, even as fuel prices surged in the wake of the attacks. US retail
diesel prices rose by nearly $1/USG in the week ending on 9 March, the highest
weekly increase on record, according to federal data. "Prices are coming down
very substantially, oil will be coming down, that's just a matter of war," Trump
said on Wednesday during an event in Ohio. A potential emergency release from
the SPR would represent an acknowledgment from the Trump administration that its
strikes on Iran are likely to have a long-term effect on global energy markets,
rather than the short-term effect it expected. The administration has spent the
last week downplaying the need for an SPR release. "We're more than happy to use
that if it's needed," US energy secretary Chris Wright said in an interview with
CBS on 8 March. "But as you said earlier, it's a logistics issue. Where do they
need oil? They need oil at refineries in Europe and in Asia." Democrats have
attacked Trump for launching strikes against Iran without making it a priority
to refill the SPR, or to secure the strait of Hormuz. Last year, his
administration bought just 900,000 bl of crude for the SPR, despite Trump saying
in his inaugural address he wanted to refill the SPR to the "top" of its
capacity. The tax law Trump signed into law only had enough funds to pay for
about 3mn bl of crude, or about 1pc of what would be needed to refill the SPR to
its authorized capacity of 714mn bl. Republicans have blamed Democrats for the
depleted state of the SPR, which is now filled to 58pc of capacity. Tom Cotton
(R-Arkansas) wrote on Wednesday that Democrats had "undermined" the SPR by
declining to provide billions of dollars to refill the SPR during Trump's first
term. Cotton also faulted former president Joe Biden's release of 180mn bl of
crude from the SPR in 2022, during an oil price spike caused by Russia's
invasion of Ukraine. By Chris Knight Send comments and request more information
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