Oil reserves changed from "defensive weapons" to "offensive weapons"

CIC adviser: IEA announced on June 23 that its member states took out 60 million barrels of oil from the government's strategic reserves to launch the market to lower crude oil prices and support the recovery of the global economy.

The IEA announced on June 23 that its member countries had taken 60 million barrels of oil from the government's strategic reserves to put them on the market to lower crude oil prices and support the recovery of the global economy. When the news came out, international crude oil crashed. Members of the OPEC member states, such as Iran, accused the United States and its European allies of attempting to manipulate the international crude oil market. "Man-madely" lowering oil prices is "dangerous political behavior."

A Western analyst said, "Today, the 'Defensive Oil Weapons' was used for the first time on the offensive and sent messages to OPEC and crude oil marketers to make them unforgettable." Ren Haoning, a researcher in the energy industry at China Investment Advisors, agrees with this view that the IEA’s move to release crude oil reserve is of far-reaching significance. It signifies that the strategic reserve of crude oil is not just a defensive weapon used to deal with natural disasters, wars, and the interruption of crude oil supply. "It is evolving into an "offensive weapon" in which the West weighed on oil prices, expelled speculators, and OPEC competed for the pricing of crude oil prices.

Ren Haoning pointed out that the United States has released its crude oil reserve for the third time since it established a strategic oil reserve. The first oil supply that began in Kuwait and Iraq in the Gulf War was interrupted, and the second time began in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico causing damage to the oil extraction platform. In fact, the release of crude oil reserves by the IEA greatly stimulated the OPEC member countries represented by Iran and may lead to retaliation. However, the IEA, represented by the United States, has a firm attitude and shows that it is determined to use strategic oil reserves to intervene in oil prices, and it also greatly challenges the game rules of the international oil market.

Zhang Yulin, research director of China Investment Consulting, pointed out that Western countries are using their strategic oil reserves as weapons that affect international oil prices and compete with OPEC for oil price control. Although China has become the world’s second-largest oil consumer, and its dependence on foreign crude oil exceeds 50%, China has so far not been able to establish a complete strategic crude oil reserve. Since 2007, the strategic oil reserve that the government began to construct is currently undergoing the second phase of construction. However, compared with the United States and other western countries, the scale is too small to fully protect domestic oil security. China's oil security situation is worrying.

The "2011-2015 China Petroleum Market Investment Analysis and Prospect Forecast Report" released by China Investment Advisors pointed out that strategic oil reserve is one of the effective ways for a country to cope with the short-term oil supply shock. Its role is to ensure national energy security, ensure the continuous supply of crude oil, and at the same time have the function of suppressing the abnormal fluctuations in domestic oil prices.