And the pace of sales in the oil market accelerated near the closure, which prompted the global benchmark Brent crude and the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate to record their lowest levels to close since March 16.
And Brent contracts settled at $101.07 a barrel, down $5.57, or 5.2%.
US crude contracts closed down $5.73, or 5.6%, to $96.23 a barrel.
The International Energy Agency said its member states would release 120 million barrels of strategic reserves to cool prices.
According to two informed sources, the figure will include 60 million barrels of strategic reserves in the United States.
This pledge forms part of a previous US announcement of the withdrawal of 180 million barrels from the reserves.
This is the second time that the International Energy Agency has released oil from reserves this year, effectively boosting global supply by regarding two million barrels per day for at least the next two months as the world tries to cope with the potential loss of Russian oil. The group collectively has regarding 1.5 billion barrels in strategic reserves.
On the other hand, the minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting showed that the US central bank had intended to raise interest rates by 50 basis points in most of its recent meetings, but chose a smaller increase due to the war in Ukraine.
The minutes of the meeting indicated a hawkish approach by the Fed while trying to curb inflation, which gave a boost to the US dollar.
The oil market was also negatively affected by an increase of 2.4 million barrels in US crude stocks last week, while analysts had expected a decrease.
US oil production also rose, recording 11.8 million barrels per day, the highest since late 2021 and is expected to continue rising.
The United States also released regarding 4 million barrels of strategic reserves in the past week.
