As oil prices reached their highest level since 2014 under pressure of the Russian invasion of Ukraine the United States and unspecified allies are considering releases from strategic oil reserves, according to industry sources consulted by Reuters.
Oil prices broke the $100 per barrel mark with the WTI Crude up 8% in morning trading.
Russia is the world’s third largest oil producer, according to the International energy Agency (IEA), producing 10.5 million barrels per day in liquid fuels on average in 2020.
Though oil exports from Russia have not been hit by sanctions directly, sanctions have effected payment and shipping of the oil calling into question Russian supplies.
The spike in prices comes as spare production capacity worldwide is down to 2.8 million barrels per day, according to JP Morgan data.
The authorized storage capacity of the US strategic petroleum reserve is 727 million barrels. According to the latest IEA data US Strategic Petroleum Reserve Inventory in December 2021 was 593,683 million barrels.
