Bloomberg reported that the price of Brent crude in London Stock Exchange trading on the morning of March 12 exceeded $100 per barrel. The price of a barrel rose to $101.59.
“The only thing that will really cause oil prices to fall is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz,” Neil Beveridge, research director at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., told the agency.
According to him, the quantities of oil that the United States 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, the member states of the International Energy Agency (the International Energy Agency, whose members include the United States, Turkey, Great Britain, Germany and others) agreed to release the largest volume of government oil reserves – 400 million barrels, i.e. a third of the total reserves. In this way, the agency is trying to mitigate the shock to the oil market caused by the American and Israeli war with Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a quarter of the world’s oil supplies pass.
Donald Trump quickly announced that the United States would uncover the strategic reserve and release 172 million barrels of oil onto the market. In his opinion, this would reduce oil prices.
On March 9, the price of Brent crude oil reached $119.5 per barrel. Oil was traded at this level for the first time since June 17, 2022.