WTI Crude Near $85 as IEA Approves Historic Reserve Release in Oil & Companies News 11/03/2026 WTI crude futures pared some gains on Wednesday, trading back around $85 per barrel after briefly approaching $89, as traders continued to assess attacks in the Strait of Hormuz while the International Energy Agency approved its largest-ever release of emergency oil reserves, with member states set to release 400 million barrels. Earlier in the day, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the country could release oil from its national reserves as early as next week. Still, the conflict with Iran shows no signs of easing, with mixed signals from the US administration adding to uncertainty. US President Donald Trump told Axios in a brief phone interview on Wednesday that the war would end “soon” because there is “practically nothing left to target.” A day earlier, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said it “will be our most intense day of strikes”. Meanwhile, OPEC kept its forecasts for global oil demand growth in 2026 and 2027 unchanged in its March report. Source: Trading Economics 2026-03-11 hellenicshippingnews... window.___gcfg = {lang: 'en-US'}; (function(w, d, s) { function go(){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], load = function(url, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.src = url; js.id = id; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }; load('//connect.facebook.net/en/all.js#xfbml=1', 'fbjssdk'); load('https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js', 'gplus1js'); load('//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js', 'tweetjs'); } if (w.addEventListener) { w.addEventListener("load", go, false); } else if (w.attachEvent) { w.attachEvent("onload",go); } }(window, document, 'script')); tweet Share