US to release 172m barrels of oil from strategic petroleum reserve

The United States will release 172m barrels of oil from its strategic petroleum reserve in a bid to reduce oil prices that have soared due to supply shocks from the US-Israeli war with Iran, US energy secretary Chris Wright said on Wednesday.

Wright said the release is part of a broader release of 400m barrels of oil agreed to by the 32-country International Energy Agency earlier in the day.

Wright said the release will begin next week and will take approximately 120 days to deliver.

In his statement, Wright accused Iran of having “manipulated and threatened the energy security of America and its allies”.

Trump had said earlier on Wednesday that he planned to tap the petroleum reserve.

“We’ll do that, and then we’ll fill it up. I filled it up once, and I’ll fill it up again,” Trump said earlier in the day. “Right now, we’ll reduce it a little bit, and that brings the prices down.”

Reuters contributed reporting