The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is urging the United States to pull oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help lower the price of crude oil, media outlets reported Wednesday, Oct. 27.

Whether the release is needed is not certain – the price of crude oil dropped significantly on the New York Mercantile Exchange Wednesday, closing at $52.46, $2.71 below the previous day’s closing price.

The request was contained in comments made by Indonesia’s Purnomo Yusgiantoro, president of OPEC. The OPEC request is unusual. The organization typically looks at government stockpiles as a threat to its market influence, Reuters news service reported. OPEC officials are concerned that if oil prices stay high, it could hurt demand in the future by hurting economic growth worldwide and spurring the use of alternative fuels. The cartel controls around half of all oil exports worldwide.

The announcement came a day after the price of oil closed on the New York Mercantile Exchange at a record high $55.17. Analysts have pointed to supply problems – such as the war in Iraq and instability in Nigeria – as factors in recent crude oil price increases.

The Bush administration has been reluctant to pull oil out of the reserves, even in the face of those supply disruptions and recent high prices. Several Gulf Coast refineries were allowed to borrow relatively small amounts from the reserve recently after hurricanes lashing that part of the country temporarily reduced the supply of Gulf oil.

The administration, instead, is continuing to add oil to the reserves, hoping to reach its full capacity – more than 650 million barrels – by next year.

The last significant withdrawal from the reserve was in 2000. The price of oil at that time was $38 per barrel – about $17 less than current prices – and the reserve withdrawal reduced the price to about $10 per barrel, Reuters news service reported.