Eleven European countries on Thursday pledged to jointly release 42.6 million barrels of oil by the end of January 2027.
The pledge is in line with a G7 deal reached this month to ease global concerns over energy supply.
“EU member states have reaffirmed their commitment to an accelerated release of 42.6 million barrels from strategic reserves over the next months, and around half of this will be diesel,” the EU’s energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen told reporters.
In a joint statement, the eleven countries, including France, Germany and Italy, said they would release the oil from their strategic reserves by the end of January 2027. The volume includes 20.5 million barrels of diesel.
The other European countries involved are Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.
Lithuania also endorsed the initiative, although it did not sign the joint pledge.
The announcement comes weeks after the G7 economies said they would release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude oil. That followed a threat by US President Donald Trump to ban diesel exports.
The International Energy Agency, to which all the EU nations belong, called in mid-October for its members to step up the release of oil stocks ahead of winter.
Trump had increased pressure on Europe to release reserves after the US-Israeli war with Iran sent energy prices soaring. The surge has hurt him at home through high fuel costs, which have become a key issue ahead of congressional elections next week.
The EU said it was taking the impact of the crisis on households seriously but was not worried about supply.
“We do not expect the security of supply issue as such. But for the citizens who are struggling to pay the bills, that might not matter,” Jorgensen said.
