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Two cargoes carrying nearly 1.8 million barrels of crude oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) are heading to Türkiye as Washington accelerates emergency releases to ease global supply disruptions triggered by the Iran conflict, a report showed.
The deliveries are part of a broader U.S. release of 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), coordinated with an International Energy Agency (IEA) plan to inject a record 400 million barrels into global markets to curb surging crude prices earlier in the conflict.
According to ship tracking data compiled by Reuters, the Greek-flagged tanker North Star loaded around 680,000 barrels of sweet crude from the Bryan Mound SPR facility near Texas City in April and is expected to arrive in Türkiye by mid-May, where it is set to dock at the Aliaga terminal.
A second vessel, the Hong Kong-flagged DHT Antelope, loaded roughly 1.1 million barrels of Bryan Mound sour crude through a ship-to-ship transfer near Galveston in late April and is scheduled to unload in Türkiye later this month.
The report noted that U.S. crude exports have climbed to record levels as tightening supplies across Europe and Asia pushed prices higher.
Other SPR cargoes released under the emergency program have already been shipped to Italy and the Netherlands, it added.
Türkiye has so far not faced a risk of oil supply shortages from the conflict, as its reliance on the Strait of Hormuz stood at around 10%, according to Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar.
However, as a net energy importer, the country has been hit by surging global energy prices, adding pressure on inflation and further widening the current account deficit.
Following the IEA’s decision to release emergency reserves, Bayraktar announced that Ankara would release 11.6 million barrels from its strategic oil reserves within 90 days.
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