The move by the White House is expected on Thursday and will mark the third and potentially largest oil release it has announced since November. Oil prices fell after reports of Biden’s impending announcement, with West Texas Intermediate, the US oil index falling 4.9% to $ 102.49 and Brent international benchmark oil falling 3.6 percent. at $ 109.34. A person familiar with the plan said the final details were still being found, but the release from the US strategic oil stockpile was expected to take several months and amount to up to 1 million barrels per day. The US consumes about 20 million barrels a day, representing about one-fifth of global demand. At 1.30 p.m. On Thursday, Biden will speak on “his government’s actions to reduce the impact [Vladimir] “Putin’s increase in energy prices and lower gas prices at the pump for American households,” according to the White House program. Since the Moscow invasion of Ukraine, Biden has increasingly accused the Russian president of high inflation, which is hurting his approval ratings and undermining the Democratic Party’s chances of retaining control of Congress in the November midterm elections. The White House move also comes as Western nations have stepped up sanctions against Russia, the world’s largest oil exporter, including a US ban on oil imports from the country in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The International Energy Agency, a watchdog for Western consumer countries, said this month that sanctions on Russia and the reluctance of shippers to load Russian crude could cut the country’s output by up to 3 million barrels a day, or about 3 million barrels a day. percent of world total production. until April. “It would not be strange for the administration to extend it [earlier stock releases] “Given the great risk of a breakdown in Russian oil, it is not disappearing,” said Bob McNally, an adviser to former US President George W. Bush, who now heads the consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group. Oil prices have soared since the invasion, with the international Brent benchmark hitting a 14-year high this month. Prices have almost doubled in the past year, while average petrol prices have risen by almost 50 per cent, a record in recent weeks.

The United States has also urged Saudi Arabia and other major OPEC oil producers to increase supply, but the cartel has resisted pressure to do so. The production team will meet on Thursday to decide on its production policy. The SPR is a government-maintained emergency storage complex consisting of four underground salt dome locations along the US Gulf Coast. It currently holds 568 million barrels of crude oil, according to the Federal Energy Information Agency. Biden announced his release from the SPR in November, and last month the United States joined other ILO members in a coordinated global release. Previous major stockpiles have come after supply disruptions, such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the civil war in Libya in 2011. The Ministry of Energy declined to comment. Additional Report by Myles McCormick in New York

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