By Joanna Plucinska<\/p>\n
LONDON, April 17 (Reuters) – The European Union is prepared to coordinate a release of jet fuel stocks if disruption \u200cto the Strait of Hormuz persists, an EU spokesperson told \u200cReuters on Friday, even as Iran temporarily reopened the key waterway.<\/p>\n
European airlines and regulators have \u200bwarned of flight cancellations, grounded aircraft and disruption to summer holiday travel unless jet fuel supply bottlenecks from the Middle East linked to the Iran war ease soon.<\/p>\n
Iran said on Friday it would reopen the Strait of \u200cHormuz for commercial shipping \u2060following a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon. U.S. President Donald Trump later said a U.S. naval blockade of Iran’s ports \u2060would remain until a deal with Tehran is struck.<\/p>\n
Shipping firm Hapag-Lloyd said it would avoid transiting the Strait of Hormuz while it assessed Iran’s announcement.<\/p>\n
“There are \u200bno fuel \u200bshortages in the EU at present. \u200bWe are, however, preparing for \u200cpossible supply shortages of jet fuels,” the EU spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters, adding the bloc could release reserves if the strait remained disrupted.<\/p>\n
“If the situation in the Strait of Hormuz continues, the EU will be preparing to launch a possible coordinated release of jet fuel \u200cstocks.”<\/p>\n
The spokesperson added that Iran’s announcement did \u200bnot change current plans and said it \u200bwould be clearer next week \u200bwhether the strait remains open.<\/p>\n
The comments, the EU’s most \u200cdirect so far, follow a call \u200bearlier this week by \u200bGermany’s largest aviation lobby for the release of Europe’s strategic jet fuel reserves to support the sector.<\/p>\n
The EU is also set \u200bto announce plans next \u200cweek to optimise refinery capacity and address a looming jet fuel \u200bsupply crunch, Reuters reported on Thursday.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska. Editing \u200bby Hugh Lawson and Mark Potter)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Joanna Plucinska LONDON, April 17 (Reuters) – The European Union is prepared to coordinate a release of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":902298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[93085,2000,299,5187,1699,774,90907,74677,254053,26945],"class_list":["post-902297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-disruption","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-iran","tag-jet-fuel","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-supply-shortages","tag-the-european-union"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116424451460965536","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/902298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}