The United States will temporarily allow countries to buy Russian oil and petroleum products stranded at sea. This was written by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday night in a post on the social media X.
- This narrowly targeted, short-term measure applies only to oil that is already in transit and will not provide any significant economic benefit to the Russian government, writes Scott Bessent.
According to the news agency Reuters, the United States has issued the permit to buy the Russian oil for 30 days. The permit is valid until April 11.
The measure comes to curb rising oil prices, which have skyrocketed due to the conflict in the Middle East, the US Treasury Secretary said. The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil has climbed above $100, which has not happened since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The benchmark Brent oil is a type of crude oil that is often used as a reference for oil prices in Europe and elsewhere in the world.
Believe in temporary price hike
However, Scott Bessent believes that the rising oil price is only temporary. He writes this on X. The Treasury Secretary recently said in an interview with Fox News that the US government was considering easing US sanctions on Russian oil to make oil prices fall.
The US Treasury Department has previously granted India a waiver from US sanctions to buy Russian oil that was stranded at sea.
Scott Bessent has previously said that large quantities of Russian oil are currently in tankers at sea. The announcement from the US Treasury Secretary comes the day after the US released 172 million barrels of oil from the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It was yet another attempt to curb sky-high oil prices.
The oil from the United States is part of a larger release of a total of 400 million barrels of oil, which the 32 member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA) adopted on Wednesday.
The United States and Israel began bombing Iran on February 28, which has responded with attacks on Israel and the Gulf states where there are American military bases.
The release of oil is being done to replace some of the oil that cannot get out through the Strait of Hormuz, which separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula and is important for the transport of oil from the Middle East.
The strait has been practically closed to shipping traffic after the war broke out and after the Revolutionary Guard in Iran took control of the strait.
/ritzau/
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