The U.S. and other major oil-consuming nations said Tuesday they would release 60 million barrels of oil from their emergency stockpiles, sending a jolt of new crude supplies into the market amid a price surge caused by the Ukraine crisis.
The move by members of the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based group that includes the U.S., Japan and much of Europe, represents another coordinated effort to counter Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine. The coordinated drawdown is the fourth in the 47-year history of the IEA and is second by size only to the release it executed during the first Gulf War in 1991.