Japanese Prime Minister Kishida confirms his government is considering an oil reserve release
Over the past week the US administration has been in discussions with other countries over releasing oil from reserves:
The US has approached China, Japan, India, South Korea
Japan PM Kishida over the weekend:
- We’re proceeding with consideration as to what we can do legally on the premise that Japan will coordinate with the United States and other countries concerned
- We want to draw a conclusion after thoroughly considering the situation each country faces and what Japan can do
Japanese legislation enables a reserve release only when supply is constrained or at a time of natural disasters. It’ll take some argument to allow a release merely to combat high prices, but I’m sure if such arguments need to be made they will be. I’ll leave that one up to the lawyers.