The price of Brent crude oil on the London exchange exceeded $100 per barrel in morning trading on March 12, Bloomberg reports. The price per barrel rose to $101.59.
"The only thing that can really lower oil prices is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz," said Neil Beveridge, director of research at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co, in a comment to the agency, as quoted by "Meduza".
According to him, the volumes of oil that the U.S. decided to release from strategic reserves are "nothing compared to the 20 million barrels" per day that the world is losing due to the closure of the strait.
On March 11, member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA, which includes the U.S., Turkey, the UK, Germany, and others) agreed to release the largest volume of government oil reserves — 400 million barrels, a third of the total reserves. This is how the agency is trying to mitigate the shock in the oil market caused by the war between the U.S. and Israel with Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a quarter of all global oil supplies pass.
Shortly thereafter, Donald Trump announced that the United States would tap into the strategic reserve and release 172 million barrels of oil onto the market. In his opinion, this should lower oil prices.
On March 9, Brent crude reached $119.5 per barrel. This was the first time oil traded at this level since June 17, 2022.
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