Officials on Thursday pointed to the drawn out nature of the Libyan disruption as the driving force behind tapping the reserve. The IEA estimated that the unrest in Libya removed 132 million barrels of light, sweet crude oil from the market by the end of May.This is truly incredible.
But the total amount that will be released to ease supply troubles -- 60 million barrels -- is less than one day's worldwide oil consumption.
In March, Obama said his administration was not tapping the reserve because there was no supply shock and other countries would fill the production gap.
"Right now, what we're seeing is not a shortage of supply," Obama said, before adding that, "even if Libyan oil production was suspended for a significant period of time because of the unrest there, we'd be able to fill that gap."
Many analysts were expecting OPEC to increase production earlier this month in response to the Libyan shortfall, but a decision to do so could not be reached.
So much for all those folks who said Saudi wouldn't "bluff us."
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