The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has begun monitoring the threat by some member states to release 70 million barrels of crude oil from their strategic reserves.
The threat followed the oil conglomerate’s refusal to raise its supply to the global market, despite rising demand.
Secretary-General of OPEC, Mohammad Barkindo, who dropped the hint ahead of its 58th Meeting of the Joint Technical Committee, said the monitoring became necessary to forestall countries’ plan to flood the market with their stockpiles.
“We will continue to monitor the potential near-term impacts if some leading consuming countries carry through with their announced plans to release an estimated 70 million barrels from their strategic oil reserves,” he said.
Barkindo said looking at the inventory, preliminary data showed that total OECD commercial stocks fell by 16 million barrels month-on-month in November 2021 to 2.721 billion barrels.
The figure is 389 million barrels lower than the same month one year ago and 211 million barrels below the 2015-2019 average.
He added: “However, today (yesterday), we will particularly focus on the prospects for a global supply surplus developing this year.”
