IEA Members Agree To Release 400m Barrels From Strategic Reserves Amid Middle East Conflict

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says its 32 member countries have unanimously agreed to make 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves available to the market to address disruptions caused by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

The decision to take collective emergency action was made following an extraordinary meeting of IEA member governments held on Tuesday, convened by the agency’s Executive Director to assess market conditions amid the conflict and consider options to address supply disruptions.

This was contained in a statement issued by the IEA on Wednesday.

“The oil market challenges we are facing are unprecedented in scale; therefore, I am very glad that IEA member countries have responded with an emergency collective action of unprecedented size,” said Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA.

“Oil markets are global, so the response to major disruptions needs to be global too. Energy security is the founding mandate of the IEA, and I am pleased that IEA members are showing strong solidarity in taking decisive action together,” he added.

According to the IEA, the emergency stocks will be released to the market over a timeframe appropriate to the national circumstances of each member country and will be supplemented by additional emergency measures by some governments.

IEA members currently hold emergency stockpiles of more than 1.2 billion barrels, with a further 600 million barrels of industry stocks held under government obligations.

“The coordinated stock release is the sixth in the history of the IEA, which was created in 1974. Previous collective actions were taken in 1991, 2005, 2011, and twice in 2022,” the statement said.

The conflict in the Middle East, which began on February 28, 2026, has significantly disrupted oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, with export volumes of crude oil and refined products currently at less than 10 percent of pre-conflict levels. This has forced operators across the region to shut in or curtail a substantial amount of production.

An average of 20 million barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum products transited the Strait of Hormuz in 2025, representing around 25 percent of the world’s seaborne oil trade.

Iran has restricted oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, contributing to the ongoing disruption in global oil supply.