Oil prices fall after additional U.S. crude reserve release announced

Oil prices fell in early Asian trade on Tuesday after the U.S. government said it will release more crude from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and on other reports that more supply is coming into the market.

Brent crude futures fell by 82 cents, or 1 percent, to $85.79 per barrel by 0132 GMT, while U.S. crude futures fell by $1.04, or 1.3 percent, to $79.10 per barrel.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said after the previous session ended that it would sell 26 million barrels of oil from the SPR, a release that had been mandated by Congress in previous years.

The DOE had considered cancelling the fiscal year 2023 sale after U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration last year sold a record 180 million barrels from the reserve. But that would have required Congress to act to change the mandate.

Supply concerns were also relieved as a cargo of Azeri crude set sail from Turkey’s Ceyhan port on Monday, the first since a devastating earthquake in the region on Feb. 6.

Ceyhan is for endpoint for pipelines that carry oil from Azerbaijan and Iraq and about 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude can be exported from there.

Additionally, U.S. crude oil and natural gas production from the seven biggest shale basins is expected to rise to record highs in March, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its monthly Drilling Productivity Report on Monday.

Crude production in the shale basins will rise by about 75,000 bpd in March to a record 9.36 million bpd, the EIA projected.

The United States is the world’s biggest oil producer.