Western powers have readied a contingency plan to tap a record volume from emergency stockpiles to replace nearly all the Gulf oil that would be lost if Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, industry sources and diplomats told Reuters.
They said senior executives of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises 28 oil consuming countries, had discussed an existing plan to release up to 14mn barrels per day (bpd) of government-owned oil stored in the US, Europe, Japan and other importers.
Action on this scale would be more than five times the size of the biggest release in the agency’s history - made in response to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The maximum release, some 10mn bpd of crude and about 4mn bpd of refined products, could be sustained during the first month of any coordinated action, the plan says.
No comments:
Post a Comment