G7 to release 100 million barrels of oil and diesel, will it curb prices?
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x whatsapp-stroke copylink google Add Al Jazeera on Google info A driver fills up at one of the petrol pumps in a E.Leclerc petrol station in Champagnole, France [File: Horacio Villalobos#Corbis/Corbis/Getty Images] By Priyanka Shankar Published On 3 Oct 2026 3 Oct 2026 The Group of Seven (G7) countries have agreed to release 100 billion barrels of crude oil and diesel from emergency reserves over several months in an effort to reduce soaring energy prices after pressure from United States President Donald Trump.
The US and Israel’s war on Iran, as well as Russia’s war on Ukraine, have triggered a spike in global oil and diesel prices.
“The emergency release by G7 members will put some downward pressure on prices, particularly global diesel prices. However, the impact would be short-lived given that this is just a temporary solution to the supply crunch,” Hamad Hussain, a climate and commodities economist at Capital Economics, told Al Jazeera.
Oil prices jumped on Thursday and settled up more than $4 a barrel. Global diesel prices also hit a record high last Friday with the average price for a gallon (3.79 litres) of diesel at $6.50, up from $5.61 a month earlier, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).
In a statement on Thursday, the G7, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US, with the European Union also represented, said there will also be a “substantial diesel release within the first 20 days” and discussions over “additional diesel releases as necessary” will be held in the coming days.
Will the G7’s energy release stabilise the global energy market?
After a video conference of G7 leaders chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday, the group said in a joint statement: “Taking into account commitments that have already been fulfilled, we will implement our commitments with a coordinated release through the IEA of 100 million barrels.”
Earlier this week, the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol said that members had released about two-thirds of the 400-million-barrel agreement.
The G7 energy release will begin immediately and last for four months and will include a substantial diesel release for 20 days. It is not clear how many oil and diesel stocks each member of the group will release.
“We will convene in the context of the IEA in the coming days to discuss the possibility of additional diesel releases as necessary,” the statement said.
“We will coordinate maintenance schedules across G7 refineries to prevent simultaneous capacity shutdowns and temporarily increase utilization rates where feasible,” it added.
The G7 also urged member countries to refrain from imposing export restrictions on energy products among themselves.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration had threatened to impose a ban on US diesel exports and also pressured Europe to release its emergency diesel stocks to help ease soaring diesel prices.
Global energy prices have been soaring due to the US and Israel’s war on Iran, which has disrupted energy exports from the Gulf. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy installations have also disrupted global energy supplies.
The former head of the International Energy Agency’s Oil Industry and Markets Division, Neil Atkinson, told Al Jazeera that there are three key factors contributing to the decline in global diesel supply.
First, “there isn’t diesel coming out of the Middle East to Europe, and Europe took quite a lot of diesel from Saudi Arabia and from Kuwait”.
Second, “Russia has now ceased to export diesel at all” due to “the attacks by Ukraine on Russian refineries”.
“And China is no longer exporting diesel,” he added.
“We’re in a situation where demand remains relatively high and is likely to stay high because of the agricultural harvesting season.”
According to data from the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI) and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the US is the world’s largest producer and exporter of diesel. It produces about 240.5 million tonnes and exports around 1.26 million barrels of diesel per day.
Russia is the world’s second-largest diesel exporter, supplying 783,400 barrels per day (bpd) to the global market. Saudi Arabia is the world’s second-largest producer of diesel at 58.4 million tonnes, but it consumes a large portion of its diesel domestically.
After the G7 announcement, French President Macron, who had co-chaired the meeting, said the group’s move to release the oil will “bring down the prices of petroleum products, particularly diesel”.
The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, briefly dropped below $100 a barrel after the G7 announcement, but rose to about $102 in the evening.
Naeem Aslam, chief investment officer at Zaye Capital Markets, told Al Jazeera that the G7 energy release was “very much needed”, but the group’s announcement was just to ease off pressure on the energy market.
“The actual structure changes about who is going to release [the energy stocks] and what and where the bans will be lifted, remains an important component in terms of the market,” he said.
Aslam added that by Sunday night,…
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