U.S. and Countries Worldwide Release Oil Reserves to Prevent High Gas Prices

With gas prices over $3.00 a gallon and a war going on in Ukraine, people across the country are worried about a gas price increase but the U.S. and all over the world have agreed to release oil from the reserves to prevent higher prices.

According to the Midland Reporter-Telegram, 60 million barrels are being released from the strategic reserves to make sure the supplies would not be lessened because of the Russian attack on Ukraine.

The International Energy Agency has 31 countries in their membership and all 31 agreed to tap into the reserves to make sure prices would not skyrocket.

Half of the 60 million barrels will be coming from the U.S. reserves. President Joe Biden approved the commitment of 30 million barrels and even more if needed.

U.S. and European sanctions have not affected the oil and gas exports out of Russia because western leaders are not wanting to restrict any oil at a time when worldwide energy markets are tight and high prices have been creating inflation among developed economies.

“The situation in energy markets is very serious and demands our full attention,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol. “Global energy security is under threat, putting the world economy at risk during a fragile stage of the recovery.”

This is only the fourth time historically that the IEA has done a coordinated depletion of the reserves since they were created following the Arab oil embargo in 1974.

This creates a talking point for moving toward relying more on renewable energy so that we can rely less on oil imports from Russia in the future.