Germany launches tender to sell diesel, heating oil and crude oil from strategic stocks

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By Robert Harvey

LONDON, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Germany's national oil stockpiling agency EBV circulated a tender on Friday to sell diesel, heating oil and crude oil volumes from strategic reserves, according to a document seen by Reuters.

The EBV tender marks Germany's first oil releases from strategic reserves since G7 countries agreed to do so at the start of October, a trader who received the invitation to purchase oil from stocks told Reuters.

Under pressure from US President Donald Trump, for whom record diesel prices have become a major issue in the November 3 midterm elections, G7 countries agreed to release 100 million barrels from emergency stocks in a bid to calm markets.

The deal, coordinated by the International Energy Agency, included fast-tracking the release of 20 million barrels of diesel, as well as any oil remaining from emergency reserve releases pledged in March at the start of the Iran war.

Diesel is a key fuel used widely in industry and agriculture, as well as transportation, making it politically and economically sensitive when prices spiral.

European benchmark diesel futures LGOc1 hit an all-time high premium to crude futures LCOc1 of $95 per barrel in late September but had eased to around $76 as of Friday.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the full volume EBV tendered out for sale on Friday, as each company is invited separately to buy a different volume of each product, rather than one overall award of a total volume.

EBV did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment, which was sent outside regular business hours.

Germany had pledged to release up to 15 million barrels of diesel, heating oil and crude from its emergency reserves, the largest contribution from a European nation under the G7 effort, Economy Minister Katherina Reiche told Reuters earlier this month, without specifying a timeline.

Germany's upper house of parliament cleared the way to release oil from strategic reserves a week ago, including by temporarily reducing the mandatory stockpile minimum level from 90 days of consumption to 82 days.

(Reporting by Robert Harvey and Shadia Nasralla in London and Miranda Murray in Berlin; Editing by Jan Harvey and Joe Bavier)

((robert.harvey@thomsonreuters.com;))