US plans to release up to 17 mln barrels of oil from strategic reserve

The United States plans to release up to 17 million barrels of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to the market through an exchange mechanism, the U.S. Department of Energy said on Friday.

The release is part of a global oil stockpile agreement that the United States reached in March with about 30 member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA) to ease the impact of the Iran conflict on fuel prices. Under the deal, the U.S. agreed to lend 172 million barrels of crude oil from its SPR, with the parties planning to collectively release 400 million barrels of strategic reserves.

The exchange functions as a loan, requiring companies that receive the oil to return the borrowed barrels to the reserve along with an additional amount of crude.

Chinese Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu urged the international community to build consensus, strengthen cooperation and take holistic measures to meet global biodiversity targets on Friday at a summit in Armenia's capital Yerevan.

The summit was held ahead of the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the Convention on Biological Diversity scheduled for Oct 19 to 30.

In his speech at the summit in the capacity of China's representative, Huang outlined the country's progress and achievements in biodiversity protection in recent years.

Under the theme "taking action for nature," the summit aims to raise the ambition of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in 2022, and advance coordinated global action to protect biodiversity.

Huang said that China has consistently taken part in global biodiversity governance with the highest political will and the strongest practical action, and helped secure the landmark Kunming-Montreal framework, which maps out a blueprint for global biodiversity protection through 2030 and beyond.

With the framework guiding the way, countries have stepped up efforts, updating their strategies, action plans and national targets, and global ecological restoration and conservation have made progress.