The International Energy Agency would only release oil stockpiles in the event of a “serious” supply disruption and is examining which nations have extra capacity, IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said.
Van der Hoeven said she is confident of Saudi Arabia’s ability to provide spare oil production capacity, without providing any specific figures. She declined to comment on the possibility of Iran blockading the Strait of Hormuz, describing that as a hypothetical military event.
IEA member governments will release oil inventories “only if we have really serious supply disruption,” she said in an interview today in Abu Dhabi, which is hosting the World Future Energy Summit this week. “We are looking at who could meet some of the supply disruption.”
The Paris-based IEA, an energy policy adviser to 28 nations including the U.S., Japan and Germany, coordinated a supply release among its members last June after Libyan oil exports dried up. Member nations are replenishing their stockpiles now and “most of them already have,” the IEA director said.
Asked to comment on whether the IEA can release 14 million barrels a day of stockpiles, which was a maximum theoretical quantity mentioned by the agency in a February 2011 factsheet, Van der Hoeven replied: “That was then.” She did not elaborate on what is the IEA’s capability now.
“We monitor and assess the situation,” she said. The agency’s next monthly market report scheduled for publication on Jan. 18 “will have all the latest facts and figures.”
Crude for February delivery rose 85 cents to $99.55 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 2:47 p.m. London time.
“Geo-politics continues to dominate the crude oil market, with Iranian sanctions and the threat of supply disruption in Nigeria dominating the headlines,” analysts at U.K.-based KBC Energy Economics wrote in a report today.
