Foreign news agencies reported from Washington, United States on June 10 that the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the data forecasting agency of the U.S. Department of Energy, released a report stating that crude oil reserves of the world's richest countries are at their lowest level since 2003, during the presidency of George W. Bush.
The EIA forecasts that global oil reserves will decline significantly and continuously by 6.3 million barrels per day in the current quarter, the second quarter of the year, between April and June, and will further decline by 7.66 million barrels per day in the third quarter of this year, between July and September.
The crisis is due to the energy system being forced to draw heavily from commercial and emergency oil reserves because of the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.
This situation has caused oil reserves in 38 wealthy countries, members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), to fall to their lowest level since 2003. Many countries are turning to oil from the United States to replace the missing crude oil from the Middle East.
The EIA report also stated that the net exports of crude oil and petroleum products from the United States hit a record high of 5.8 million barrels per day in April, and it is forecast that net exports this year will average 4.2 million barrels per day, a sharp increase compared to last year's 1.4 million barrels per day.
Image credit: REUTERS
