Key Governments Challenge OPEC+ With Reserves

Governments from a number of the world’s biggest economies said on Thursday they are considering the release of oil from their strategic reserves.

The announcements follow a rare request by the United States for a coordinated move to ease global energy prices and ahead of a meeting of major oil producing countries.

Biden’s oil price approach is reaping desired reaction even before he takes an actual action. US crude futures have fallen about 7% from October peak as gasoline pump prices still at 7-year highs, but stabilized.

President Joe Biden, battling the political consequences of the strongest inflationary surge in decades, has spent a good month trying to talk down the price of oil. And for now, it is working.

Since late October, when crude prices topped $85 dollars a barrel and OPEC+ resisted his calls to ramp up production faster, Biden has been threatening to unleash oil from US emergency reserves, asking bureaucrats to investigate the US oil industry for price extorting and urging other oil consuming countries around the world to act.