European diesel prices jumped as much as 8 per cent on Wednesday after the International Energy Agency said member states would not add to the 400mn barrels of crude and refined products they committed to release in March.
The agency’s announcement follows a hastily arranged meeting of G7 leaders on Friday, where agreement was reached to release 100mn barrels of oil to the market over the next four months, prioritising diesel releases in the first 20 days.
After a meeting of IEA members on Wednesday, the energy watchdog said these 100mn barrels would come from the 400mn barrel stock release agreed in March, and would not include additional barrels.
Members, however, agreed to speed up a planned release of oil stocks to the market and prioritise diesel “given the current tightness” in markets.
The lack of additional diesel being released to markets led benchmark European futures to rise as much as 8 per cent to $1,435.25 a tonne. They later fell back to $1,389.50, up 4.5 per cent on the day.
The IEA said 325mn barrels of oil had been released to the market under the collective mechanism agreed in March but that some countries had released additional barrels.
This includes Japan, which has released more than it was required to from its strategic reserves to battle high prices.
The agency said: “The full release of all the stocks that had been pledged but have not yet been released from the March 2026 Collective Action would bring approximately 100mn barrels to the market.”
About half of the barrels to be released would come from European countries including France and Germany, while much of the remainder would be from the US, people familiar with the matter said. Last week, the US said it would release the remaining 40mn barrels it had committed to from its strategic reserve.
Several European diplomats told the FT on Wednesday that their governments were reluctant to release higher volumes of oil and diesel from their reserves than they had previously agreed to.
“IEA member governments still have significant levels of publicly held emergency oil stocks — equivalent to around 1.1bn barrels, including over 200mn barrels of diesel. The IEA stands ready to release more of these stocks to the market if and when required,” the agency said.