BlockBeats News, March 11th, as the Middle East conflict escalated, leading to the factual closure of the Strait of Hormuz, global energy security faced a severe challenge. The International Energy Agency (IEA) plans to launch the largest-ever strategic oil reserve release plan. Insiders revealed that the IEA proposed to release about 300 million to 400 million barrels of oil, significantly exceeding the 182 million barrels of oil released in two separate market interventions during the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict. Currently, Germany and Japan have taken the lead in responding. Japan is set to release around 80 million barrels of crude oil from private and national reserves. Japan emphasized that if the Strait of Hormuz is closed, Japan will suffer the most severe impact and therefore needs to respond promptly. The German Minister of Economic Affairs stated that Germany will release 2.4 million tons of national oil reserves. Other IEA member countries such as the UK, Austria, and South Korea have also expressed their willingness to coordinate action.
According to Bitget market data, currently, both WTI crude oil and Brent oil prices have fallen during the day, with WTI crude oil falling below $88.3 per barrel and Brent oil falling below $85.5 per barrel.
According to PolyBeats monitoring, in the prediction market Polymarket, the probability of “crude oil price breaking the historical high (i.e., $147.27) before the end of March” is 10%, and the probability of “crude oil price exceeding $120 before the end of March” is only 29%.
