Oil tumbled Thursday after the International Energy Agency, which includes the U.S., said it will release some of its emergency oil supplies to stave off a possible spike in energy prices that could strain the global economic recovery.
The IEA, based in Paris, will make 60 million barrels available over a 30-day period. Half of that will come from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which currently holds 727 million barrels of crude. The SPR was last tapped in 2008 as oil rose to a record $147 per barrel.
With Libya's oil supplies likely unavailable for at least the remainder of this year because of unrest there, and global demand for oil expected to grow in the summer, the IEA said it was concerned that tighter supplies threatened to "undermine the fragile global economic recovery." |
