US Allies Agree To Tap Emergency Oil Reserves Again - UrduPoint

US allies agreed on Friday to tap their emergency oil reserves again in a bid to calm crude prices that have soared following Russia's sp.op. in Ukraine.

The decision was made at an extraordinary ministerial meeting of the 31-nation International Energy Agency, though the group said in a statement that it would only disclose the details "early next week".

The IEA members -- which include the United States, European countries, Australia and Japan, among others -- had already pledged last month to release 62.7 million barrels of oil.

The meeting came one day after US President Joe Biden announced a record release of US oil onto the market -- one million barrels every day for six months, or a total of more than 180 million barrels.

IEA move will mark just the fifth time it has tapped its stockpiles since 1991. Its members hold emergency stockpiles totalling 1.5 billion barrels.

The group repeated its warning that the prospect of large-scale disruptions to Russian oil production "is threatening to create a global oil supply shock".