Biden Says 30 Countries Joining US in Releasing Oil Reserves

Earlier this week, the White House announced that it would start releasing one million barrels of oil per day from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to total almost 182 million barrels within the next six months.

US President Joe Biden said that 30 countries have joined the US in releasing their oil reserves.

"This morning, over 30 countries from across the world convened in an extraordinary meeting and agreed to the release of tens of millions of additional barrels of oil onto the market", Biden said during his address from the White House on Friday.

On Thursday, the White House announced that the US would begin to release one million barrels of oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (its capacity is estimated at 727 million barrels) in order to bring gas prices down.

The White House also said it will impose fees on US energy companies sitting on idle oil wells. According to Biden, US oil drillers were ignoring the energy crunch in order to make extraordinary profits without investment.

On 8 March, Biden announced that the US would boycott Russian energy imports over its special military operation in Ukraine, sending the already high oil prices up even further. The US president has dubbed the price increases as "Putin's Price Hike", although the Russian head of state has repeatedly stressed that his country was fulfilling its obligations as an oil and gas supplier, while the West was "shooting itself in the foot" by imposing such unprecedented economic sanctions against Russia.