International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol warned that the tally of commercial oil inventories is shrinking at an accelerated pace.
“I think it is depleting very fast,” he told reporters at the sidelines of a meeting of Group of Seven finance ministers in Paris, echoing comments from last week. It will be “several weeks, but we should be aware of the fact that it is declining rapidly,” he said.
He also highlighted that the spike in fertilizer and diesel prices comes at the start of the travel and planting season.
“This could have major implications for the food prices and together with the higher energy prices they might give a big push to inflation numbers,” he said.
Speaking earlier on Monday, French Finance Minister Roland Lescure — who is hosting the G-7 meetings — told Bloomberg Television’s Oliver Crook that there was a strategic reserves release a couple of months ago and “if need be we’ll do it again in the future.”
--With assistance from Alessandra Migliaccio, Joe Mayes, Tomoko Hatakeyama, Toru Fujioka, Cécile Daurat, Erik Hertzberg and Richard Bravo.
