No 'policy response' can stop the rise in crude prices, says Jeff Currie

By Myra P. Saefong

The damage is going to take months to unwind, commodities guru told Bloomberg TV

The International Energy Agency announced the release of an unprecedented amount of crude oil from its reserves Wednesday.

Wednesday brought the strongest effort so far to ensure adequate global supplies of crude oil amid the conflict in the Middle East - but commodities guru Jeff Currie said the International Energy Agency's decision to release an unprecedented amount of crude from its reserves won't halt climbing oil prices

"There is no policy response that can stop this ascent in crude - none," Jeff Currie, chief strategy officer of Energy Pathways at Carlyle Group, told Bloomberg on Wednesday.

Oil traders Wednesday also appeared unconvinced that the release will help ease the tightness in supplies. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for April delivery (CLJ26) (CL.1) climbed by 4.6% to settle at $87.25 a barrel, while global benchmark May Brent (BRNK26) (BRN00) added 4.8% to end at $91.98 a barrel.

Global supply chains have been disrupted all over the world as a result of the Iran conflict, Currie said in the Bloomberg interview. Ships are in the wrong places, insurance policies on those ships have been canceled, and production has been shut down in places like Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the UAE, he noted.

"The damage is going to take months to unwind," Currie said.

He added that "flow rate" is what matters following the the IEA's decision to release oil from its reserves. Currie estimated that the maximum amount of oil that can flow out of the reserves is 2 million barrels per day, so the 400 million barrels released by the IEA could take 200 days to flow out.

Put in the context of the overall disruption to the oil market - which could be around 18 million barrels per day - the impact of the IEA's release is "miniscule," Currie said.

-Myra P. Saefong

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03-11-26 1528ET