Germany notified oil companies Wednesday of their entitlements under the emergency International Energy Agency stock release that will allow companies to take oil volumes relative to their market share, the state-owned National Petroleum Stockpiling Agency (EBV) said. Germany's total share of the 60 million barrel stock release, announced last week by the IEA, is 4.2 million barrels, the largest release of the European countries taking part and less than only the US' 30 million barrels of crude and Japan's 7.9 million barrels of crude and products. Of Germany's total, 2.1 million barrels are crude, 1.05 million barrels gasoline and 1.05 million barrels diesel. "We sent out this morning the quotas of what [companies'] shares will be of the stocks," Eberhard Pott, EBV board director, told Platts Wednesday. "We offer them respective amounts at locations where they can then take the stocks," he said. Under German law, all companies that either produce or import oil and oil products are obligatory members of the EBV. In the event of a release, companies have the right to buy volumes from the EBV proportionate to the volumes of oil produced or imported in the calendar year ahead of the release, Pott said. Crude oil and oil products are stored at some 170 locations throughout Germany, he said. These are both subsurface tanks, mostly for products, and caverns in northern Germany that store crude. PRICING FORMULA The price of the released stocks is based on a published market formula, Pott said, with logistical differentials added on. Pott said it was difficult to estimate what the market interest in the stock release would be. "It's tough to say. But if our members don't buy at the market price, we have the option to have a second go and put out a tender," he said. The IEA has previously only ordered the release of emergency stocks twice -- during the Persian Gulf war in 1991 and in September 2005 in the wake of shortages in the Gulf of Mexico caused by Hurricane Katrina. In both cases, there was a clear need for additional oil to offset supply outages of a greater magnitude than the current absence of Libya's exports, the reason for the release this time around. In 2005, Pott said companies bought around 60% of what was released. At that time, the total German release was 500,000 mt, or around 3.7 million barrels, slightly less than this year. Pott said the percentage of oil bought in the 1991 release was "pretty much the same picture." --Stuart Elliott, stuart_elliott@platts.com Similar stories appear in Oilgram News. See more information at http://www.platts.com/Products/oilgramnews

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