G7 announces release of 100 million barrels of strategic oil, Europe refuses to add to reserves: most may just be fulfilling old March quotas.

October 7th, according to Bloomberg citing internal EU meeting memos, EU member states generally believe that the G7's announcement last week of a coordinated release of 100 million barrels of crude oil and diesel does not mean that Europe needs to further use strategic reserves on a large scale beyond previous commitments. The EU side tends to limit the scale of subsequent releases to the quota already agreed upon in March this year, meaning there may be a significant difference between the G7's so-called "100 million barrels" and the actual future additional supply.

The G7 previously announced that under the coordination of the International Energy Agency (IEA), it would release a total of 100 million barrels of crude oil and diesel over the next four months, and required prioritizing and significantly advancing diesel deliveries in the first 20 days. But as of now, no EU member state has explicitly committed to adding new inventory releases within this period.

In March this year, IEA member states reached a plan to release about 400 million barrels of strategic crude oil and refined products, of which EU member states collectively bore about 20%. As of early October, about two-thirds of the quota has been released, and some quota has still not been fulfilled. The EU's current mainstream position is to complete existing commitments rather than expand the overall release scale; some countries require the IEA to first assess the impact of previous releases on the market and energy security.

On diesel, Europe may agree to advance existing quotas originally scheduled for later release, but is unwilling to add extra "increases." European policymakers are concerned that, against the backdrop of a fragile Middle East supply chain and rising winter energy demand, consuming strategic inventories too early may weaken the ability to respond to subsequent supply shocks.