Over the past week the US administration has been in discussions with other countries over releasing oil from reserves:
The US has approached China, Japan, India, South Korea
- Biden raising the issue of oil reserve release with Japan and China
- US negotiating a co-ordinated oil reserve release, but Asian reserves are low
Japan PM Kishida over the weekend:
- We're proceeding with consideration as to what we can do legally on the premise that Japan will coordinate with the United States and other countries concerned
- We want to draw a conclusion after thoroughly considering the situation each country faces and what Japan can do
Japanese legislation enables a reserve release only when supply is constrained or at a time of natural disasters. It'll take some argument to allow a release merely to combat high prices, but I'm sure if such arguments need to be made they will be. I'll leave that one up to the lawyers.
