據世界能源12月24日消息：韓國將在2022年第一季度釋放317萬桶石油儲備，這是美國主導的主要石油消費國為降低油價而采取的措施之一。

根據引用的貿易、工業和能源部(Motie)的數據，1月至3月期間釋放的石油量占韓國國家石油儲量9700萬桶的3.3%。

韓國表示，其中200多萬桶原油將通過貸款協議提供給當地煉油商，其余109萬桶石油產品將通過投標程序提供給出價最高的投標者。

美國11月底曾表示，美國能源部將從SPR釋放5,000萬桶石油，以與其他主要石油消費國共同努力，降低高企的汽油價格。美國的SPR釋放將與印度、日本、韓國和英國等其他主要能源消費國家同步進行。

盡管5000萬桶似乎是一個巨大數字，但美國釋放的石油實際上相當于美國大約兩天半的石油消費量，2019年大流行前美國的石油消費量為每天2050萬桶。

其他國家的減產幅度要小得多，主要石油消費國似乎正在協調努力，試圖降低高油價，而歐佩克+則堅持其石油生產計劃。

石油市場已經基本消化了SPR發布的價格，在官方聲明發布之前，油價就出現了下滑。分析師還指出，戰略儲備的一次性銷售對大幅壓低油價并沒有太大作用。

推動油價走低的是Omicron新冠病毒的出現，該變體在感恩節后嚇壞了市場，導致第二天價格暴跌10%。隨著各國開始宣布禁止來自非洲國家的航班，原油領跌所有市場。美國節日期間石油市場的低流動性也導致了價格暴跌，這是自2020年4月以來的最大單日暴跌。

馮娟 摘譯自 世界能源

原文如下：

South Korea To Release 3 Million Barrels Of Oil Reserves In Early 2022

South Korea will release 3.17 million barrels of its oil reserves in the first quarter of 2022 as part of the U.S.-led global effort by major oil-consuming nations to lower prices.

The volume to be released between January and March accounts for 3.3 percent of South Korea’s state oil reserves of 97 million barrels, according to the ministry of trade, industry and energy (Motie) cited .

Just over 2 million barrels of the release will be crude and will go to local refiners via loan agreements, and the other 1.09 million barrels will be petroleum products released via a bidding process to the highest bidder, South Korea said.

U.S. said at the end of November that the Department of Energy would release 50 million barrels of oil from the SPR in a bid to lower high gasoline prices in a coordinated effort with other major oil-consuming nations. The SPR release from the United States will be carried out in parallel with other major energy-consuming nations, including China, India, Japan, South Korea, and the UK.

Despite the seemingly big number, 50 million barrels, the U.S. release actually equals around two and a half days of American petroleum consumption, which was at 20.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in the pre-pandemic 2019.

The other countries are going for much smaller releases, and the message seems to be that major oil consumers are coordinating efforts to try to lower high prices, while OPEC+ sticks to its guns over its oil production plan.

The oil market had already largely priced in SPR releases, with prices sliding before the official announcement. Analysts have also pointed out that one-off sales from strategic reserves cannot do much to move oil prices significantly lower.

What did move oil prices lower was the emergence of the Omicron COVID variant, which spooked the markets jut after Thanksgiving, leading to a 10-percent price collapse on the following day. Crude oil led the plunge in all markets as countries started to announce bans on flights from African countries. The low liquidity on the oil market in the festive period in the U.S. also contributed to the collapse in prices, which was the largest one-day crash since April 2020.