IEA won't wait for war to consider oil release

www.globeandmail.com Saturday, January 11, 2003 – Page B7

The West's energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency, could begin preliminary discussions on a possible emergency oil release in a week's time, the agency's acting executive director William Ramsay said yesterday. War in Iraq, if an oil strike in Venezuela were still running, could trigger deliveries from the IEA, he said. "But we don't need to wait for a war, if there is one, because we've already lost three million barrels a day from Venezuela," he added.