U.S. Energy Secretary Wright Says Oil Price Rise Hasn't Destroyed Demand

By Anthony Harrup

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Monday that while oil prices have risen as a result of the war in the Middle East, they haven't gone high enough to generate significant demand destruction.

"Obviously we have impacted energy flows and other critical material flows coming out of the Strait of Hormuz," he said at S&P Global's CERAWeek event. "But this a conflict that we simply couldn't kick down the road."

The rise in prices was a signal to producers that can do it to produce more oil, he said. But "prices have not risen high enough yet to drive meaningful demand destruction."

The Department of Energy plans to release 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to address the disruption of supply through the Strait of Hormuz, part of the 400 million barrels committed by the member countries of the International Energy Agency.

A first U.S. tranche of 45.2 million barrels began Friday via exchanges under which the DOE expects to receive 55 million barrels in return. Wright said the release of oil from the U.S. started Friday afternoon, against expectations that the first oil could take three weeks to start flowing.

The rate of release is expected to between 1 million and 1.5 million barrels a day of U.S. stocks "and will get possibly close to 3 million barrels total," he said.

Oil futures were lower Monday after President Trump said the U.S. has postponed for five days its threatened attacks on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure following "constructive" talks with Iran. Iranian state media said the Iranian foreign ministry has denied it was in talks with the U.S.

U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude was down 8.3% at $90.03 a barrel of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude was 8.8% lower at $102.31 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.

Write to Anthony Harrup at anthony.harrup@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 23, 2026 11:10 ET (15:10 GMT)