Crude oil prices on Wednesday continued to ease as the International Energy Agency (IEA) pitched in with a proposal to release its oil reserves in the market.
Global benchmark Brent Crude was trading almost 1 percent lower at around $86.91 per barrel. The US benchmark WTI Crude also declined marginally by 0.26 percent to trade at $83.3 per barrel.
The commodity maintained its easing streak for the second consecutive day on Wednesday. Prices had declined on Tuesday as well after the United States President Donald Trump indicated the “completion” of the Iran war which has choked oil supplies from the Gulf.
On Monday, prices had reached close to $120 per barrel when both sides in the US-Israel-Iran war had escalated attacks on each other’s fuel establishments.
Wednesday’s decline came after the IEA proposed the largest release of its crude oil reserves in the open market to offset oil scarcity due to the war.
The France-headquartered agency circulated the proposal among energy officials, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
The 32 member countries will take a decision on the proposal on Wednesday. These include countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and European nations like Germany and France.
The proposal will need to be accepted with full consensus. If any country exercises veto power then the plan may get delayed.
The agency had in 2022 released about 182 million barrels of oil in two tranches during the Russia-Ukraine war.
The latest proposed release by the IEA will be the highest in the history of the agency. The proposal comes after the agency had a meeting with the G7 nations on Tuesday to take stock of the energy crisis.
However, the meet could not result in an agreement to release strategic crude reserves.
“IEA member countries currently hold over 1.2 billion barrels of public emergency oil stocks, with a further 600 million barrels of industry stocks held under government obligation,” head of the IEA Fatih Birol had said after the meeting.
