PARIS: The International Energy Agency said on Thursday that it had ended its release of oil from strategic reserves begun in June for its 28 member countries owing to a cut in Libyan supplies.
IEA countries "concluded that the interrupted Libyan supplies have been successfully addressed by a combination of the IEA collective action and increased production from producer countries," the body said in a statement.
The IEA, which represents the major oil consuming nations, launched the collective drawdown on June 23 as the loss of the 1.6 million barrels per day of Libyan oil production had begun to seriously affect the markets.
It also noted the end to the collective action comes "against a backdrop now of weakening expectations for global oil demand growth."
IEA agreed to make available to the market 60 million barrels of crude oil and oil products, of which 38 million barrels were released from government stocks and 22 million barrels via relaxation of obligatory stock rules on private companies, the body said.
It said uptake from public stocks had been 97 percent compared to 73 percent during the last collective IEA action in 2005.
"The IEA Member countries will exercise flexibility in re-establishing their emergency stock levels through 2011 and 2012," it said.
The IEA also noted that the the collective action required none of the involved IEA countries to go below the 90-day reserve requirement.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011
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