The world’s wealthiest industrial nations agreed Friday to release diesel from their reserve stockpiles to help ease a growing crisis over record-high prices driven mostly by the war in Iran.
Under the plan, the Group of 7 nations — the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Britain and Canada — will release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude from their strategic stockpiles over the coming four months. That is equivalent to around one day’s worth of global oil demand. The effort will be coordinated by the International Energy Agency.
Calling the plan “decisive, coordinated measures to stabilize immediate energy supplies” and curb price spikes, the Group of 7 nations said in a statement that they would also make a “substantial” release of diesel within 20 days.
The group did not specify how much of the fuel to be released would be diesel and how much would be unrefined crude oil. Diesel and related fuels make up roughly 28% of the world’s oil demand, according to the IEA, and have been in especially short supply because military strikes on energy infrastructure in the Middle East and Russia have severely damaged refineries, reducing the world’s capacity to turn oil into the fuels that consumers use.
The decision comes amid threats by President Donald Trump to impose a ban on the export of U.S. diesel, a move that has drawn fierce opposition from both American oil companies and European leaders. Retail diesel prices had soared to nearly $6.50 a gallon in recent weeks, putting pressure on Trump and Republicans to find ways to lower prices before the midterm elections in November.
“Europe has just agreed to release a massive amount of their heavily stocked Diesel Oil,” Trump said on social media of the G7 announcement.
President Emmanuel Macron of France, who is the current chair the Group of 7, convened the videoconference of leaders, saying that Trump had committed to not impose an export ban on diesel fuel.
“We cannot wholly rule out export constraints governing destinations outside the G7, but odds now look lower,” Clearview, an energy research firm in Washington, said in a note to clients Friday.
Macron said he expected the release of emergency oil and diesel to cause gasoline and fuel prices to “drop at the pump as quickly as possible.”
The price of diesel futures in the United States fell 8% Friday morning. Prices that consumers pay at the pump typically follow, albeit more slowly.
A U.S. export ban on diesel would have been deeply damaging in Europe, which has become increasingly dependent on American fuel after banning Russian imports over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Europe imports about 1.5 million barrels a day, with a third coming from the United States, according to S&P Global, a market data firm.
“Europe has been very reluctant to let go of their stocks because they are concerned about a prolonged disruption, and they wish to hoard the supplies they have,” said Robert McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, a research and consulting firm in Washington.
China, another big diesel supplier, recently started restricting fuel exports again. So far, Trump has not followed suit. The more time passes, the less effective a U.S. export ban would be at lowering domestic diesel prices before the November elections. It also would risk pushing up the price of gasoline, which fuels many more vehicles in the United States.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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