The US has announced that it will release 50 million barrels of oil from its reserves in order to lower rising energy and gasoline prices.
The President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, has repeatedly urged the OPEC group of oil-producing countries to increase production faster, but OPEC has signed an agreement to increase production only gradually.
He fears that a resurgence of coronavirus cases could reduce demand, as it did at the height of the pandemic and energy bills in many countries.
A White House statement said: “American consumers are feeling the impact of high gasoline prices at the pump and on their heating bills, and American companies are also feeling the impact of oil shipments that have not kept pace with demand.
Biden is using all available tools to lower prices and address supply bottlenecks, and as part of the coordinated effort, the UK government will allow companies to voluntarily release 1.5 million barrels of oil from private reserves and support global economic recovery but “any benefit to UK motorists is likely to be limited and short-lived”.
Also, India is to put out 5 million barrels, whereas South Korea, Japan and China will announce the quantity and temporal arrangement of their releases in due course.