Netherlands Dumps Final 700,000 Barrels of Oil Products on World Market

The Netherlands just emptied the last of its pledged barrels. The Dutch government announced Thursday it released 700,000 barrels of oil products onto the global market, with diesel making up nearly half the volume. That completes the 5.36 million barrels the country had committed to supply.

The release is part of a wider agreement among International Energy Agency member states aimed at stabilizing oil markets. The Hague described this as the final tranche of its contribution.

Climate and Green Growth Minister Stientje van Veldhoven-van didn't mince words about why. The global oil market is under enormous pressure from geopolitical unrest in the Middle East, she said, adding that as long as that persists, prices will stay high and supply tight.

The backdrop is jumpy. Crude futures climbed more than 2% on Wednesday after a report that Washington warned several Gulf states about a supposedly planned short, intense military operation against Iran after the US midterm elections, according to Breaking The News. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei accused the US of disregarding its diplomatic commitments.

American stockpiles are thinning too. Commercial crude inventories in the US, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, sat at 410.62 million barrels in the week ending October 23, down 1.89 million barrels week over week, the Energy Information Administration reported. Analysts had expected a slight build of 0.015 million barrels, and US refineries processed 16.6 million barrels per day, a drop of 123,000 bpd.

For the Netherlands, the pledge is now spent. The pressure the minister described hasn't gone anywhere.