Half will be diesel: EU countries will draw more than 42 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves to lower prices at the pump

Several countries of the European Union will put on the market some 42.6 million barrels of oil, half of which is diesel, from their strategic reserves, in accordance with a commitment made within the framework of the G7, announced Thursday the European Commissioner for Energy Dan Jorgensen. “EU member states have reaffirmed their commitment to the accelerated provision of 42.6 million barrels from strategic reserves over the coming months, and around half of these volumes will be diesel,” he said on Thursday after a meeting of EU energy ministers in Luxembourg. Oil prices remain at a historically high level, at $114 per barrel of North Sea crude this Thursday, compared to less than $70 per barrel before the start of the war in the Middle East.

The rise in prices particularly concerns certain refined products such as diesel. The releases of strategic reserves are an attempt to lower prices by increasing supply. France releases 10 million barrels and hopes for a rapid effect For its part, France announced on October 12 to make ten million barrels of gasoline from its strategic stocks available to distributors, in the hope of reducing the price of a liter at the pump by 12 to 18 cents.

In France, the government is counting on "a visible drop" in pump prices from Sunday thanks to its destocking of strategic reserves already announced. The government operation, which is due to last until the end of January, plans to sell these stocks purchased before the war to distributors at 0.28 euros per liter, significantly less than the current market price, which was around 1.10 euros per liter in mid-October, according to Matignon. Maud Bregeon also asked the giant Totalenergies, which announced very high profits for the third quarter and more generally since the outbreak of war, to be "exemplary" and to "once again pass on downwards the advantage of the release of barrels, to continue its capping as much as necessary, as long as this crisis continues".

In mid-October, the group's CEO, Patrick Pouyanné, warned that Totalenergies would lower prices by around "8 to 12" cents and would maintain a price cap.

Machine-translated from French