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Report: Obama to press G8 nations to back oil release
President Obama will press Group of Eight leaders this weekend to support
a coordinated release of emergency oil supplies, according to a news report.
Obama will discuss the potential oil release during a G8
summit at Camp David on Friday and Saturday, Kyodo News, a Japanese news
outlet, reported.
White House officials have said for months that releasing oil from
the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), a 696-million-barrel oil
stockpile stored along the Gulf Coast, is “on the table.”
Reuters,
in a series of stories earlier this year, reported that U.S. officials
have approached French and British officials about coordinating an oil
release.
White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to comment on the report Wednesday.
“I have no comment on the SPR,” he said. “I have no information to impart on that subject.”
Asked
if world leaders will discuss the SPR at the G8 summit, Carney said, “I
think the global economy is on the agenda at the G8 and the global oil
market is part of the global economy, but I don’t know that that issue
is on the agenda.”
Recently, Obama has faced increasing
pressure to rein in high gasoline prices and several nations have imposed bans on Iranian oil imports.
But oil prices fell to a six-month low this week, and gasoline prices have been dropping as well.
Gasoline prices surged to a national average of nearly $3.94 per
gallon in early April, after months of steady increases. But prices have
begun decreasing in recent weeks, dropping to a national average of
about $3.73 Wednesday, according to AAA.
Obama released 30 million barrels of oil from the SPR last summer in
order to make up for supply losses from Libya. At the time,
administration officials said the supply losses were threatening the
economic recovery.
The president tapped the SPR in conjunction with International Energy Agency nations.
