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By James Herron
Fox Business

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- European governments are adopting a mixed stance to the possibility of a second release of oil from emergency stocks by the International Energy Agency to counter the disruption in Libyan exports, according to officials from member countries.

Officials from the U.K., the Netherlands, France and Italy say they are waiting for recommendations from the IEA, which is assessing market data this week, before deciding if another release is necessary.

The position of the German government, which failed to sell all of the oil from the first stock release, is less clear.

“The IEA has announced that it will review the situation on the oil market carefully,” a German government official told Dow Jones Newswires. “We have to await these recommendations.”

However, an official from Germany’s state-owned National Petroleum Stockpiling Agency, called EBV, told news agency Platts that “the word from Berlin is that there won’t be a second release.”

“There is a 90% chance the IEA won’t do a second release,” said Eberhard Pott, an EBV board director, according to the Platts report.

Germany sold just two-thirds of the oil it originally intended to release, according to IEA data. “The full amount of the available oil reserve hasn’t been called for,” the German government official said.

The other countries said they have adopted a wait-and-see approach. “Nothing is planned, but nothing is banned either,” said French Industry Minister Eric Besson at a press conference.

All of these countries collectively supplied a fifth of the 60 million barrels of oil released from emergency stocks last month.

The IEA said last week the initial stock release had proved effective, despite international oil prices rebounding to their level prior to the action. However, it also warned the oil market still looks increasingly tight through the remainder of the third quarter.

The agency will assess early this week if a second stock release in needed, said David Fyfe, the head of the IEA’s oil industry and markets division.

According to information posted on the IEA’s website, if the IEA decides an emergency stock release is required, it will send a detailed market assessment and plan for the volume of oil to be released to member countries. A stock release can then proceed, “if member countries agree or do not object to the proposal,” the website says.

–Beate Preuschoff in Berlin, Liam Moloney in Rome, Geraldine Amiel and Max Colchester in Paris, and Patrick Buis in Amsterdam contributed to this article.

Original Article