The International Energy Agency says its members agreed Friday to release further oil from their emergency reserves in response to the market turmoil caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Paris-based agency said in a statement that the agreement was reached at an extraordinary meeting of ministers. It did not provide information on how much emergency stock would be released, saying this would be made public next week.

The agency’s 31 members previously announced last month that they would release 62.7 million barrels of oil to ease shortages.

It said members noted the high oil price volatility caused by the war, with commercial inventories at their lowest level since 2014 and particular difficulties in diesel markets. Russia is the world’s third-largest oil producer, with about 60 per cent of exports going to Europe and 20 per cent going to China. The IEA said its member hold emergency stockpiles of 1.5 billion barrels.

Gazprom exit
Russian energy giant Gazprom said on Friday it was exiting its business in Germany, amid a row between the two countries over Moscow’s insistence on switching payments for Russian gas to roubles from euros.

It was not immediately clear how the move would affect the supply of Russian gas, on which Germany depends for about 40 per cent of its needs.
The company said it had terminated its participation in Gazprom Germania GMBH and all of its assets, including Gazprom Marketing & Trading Ltd. It provided no further details or explanation.

German business daily Handelsblatt reported on Thursday that the German economy ministry was considering expropriating the Gazprom and Rosneft units in the country amid concerns about the security of energy supplies. The Kremlin said on Friday that any such move would be a violation of international law.

Gazprom Germania is based in Berlin and its only shareholder is Gazprom Export, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gazprom. The German entity has subsidiaries including in Switzerland and the Czech Republic.