To curb price increases: Federal government releases part of national oil reserves

As a reaction to the Ukraine war and to calm the oil market, the federal government released part of the national oil reserve.

The Federal Ministry of Economics announced this to the German Press Agency on Wednesday.

Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) explained: "We are making a contribution in the international concert.

In times like these it is important to act as one.”

The internationally coordinated step serves to stabilize prices, which had risen sharply as a result of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.

According to the ministry, experts took the price increases as a sign of the first supply disruptions.

There are currently no restrictions on the supply of oil in Germany.

According to the ministry, strategic oil reserves have been released in Germany three times so far, each time on the basis of a joint decision by the member countries of the International Energy Agency.

The causes were the Gulf War of 1990/91, the damage caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 in the USA and the loss of Libyan oil exports in 2011.

Reserves last 90 days

The International Energy Agency (IEA) announced in Paris on Tuesday that the agency's 31 member countries would release a total of 60 million barrels of crude oil.

This should alleviate supply bottlenecks caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Germany is a member of the IEA.

According to the ministry, Germany makes a contribution corresponding to the German share of the oil consumption of the IEA countries of 5.4 percent.

Based on the total quantity of 60 million barrels to be brought onto the market, this is 434,000 tons of oil.

This corresponds to around 3 percent of the German oil reserve - but only reduces the range of the strategic reserves to the legally stipulated 90 days, since the oil reserves are currently 93 days above the legally stipulated target of 90 days.

According to the ministry, the so-called crude oil stockpiling association, which safeguards the strategic oil reserves in Germany, always keeps crude oil and crude oil products in stock in the amounts imported into Germany within a period of 90 days.

That is about 14 million tons of crude oil and nine million tons of finished petroleum products.

The crude oil is mainly stored in caverns in northern Germany, from where it can be transported via pipelines or by ship to refineries for processing.