India says ‘no use’ as US asks Asian giants to tap oil reserves

NEW DELHI: Oil prices slipped below their seven-year highs of $80 a barrel on Thursday after reports from Washington said the US has sought a co-ordinated release of strategic crude reserves by India, China, Japan and South Korea with a view to taming prices, a move New Delhi said was futile as it would have little impact.
“Strategic oil reserves weren’t ever intended for a situation like this… It’s for a force majeure situation, if there’s an earthquake, a global outbreak of hostilities, and oil supplies are shut,” India’s oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday when the news broke.
Still, global benchmark Brent slipped below $80 a barrel-mark for the first time in six weeks as mounting worries over rising Covid cases in Europe and predictions of a warmer winter weighed. Words on China preparing to sell some of its reserves to domestic refiners added to the downward pressure.