The Iran energy crisis has demonstrated beyond any doubt the strategic value of maintaining large strategic energy reserves, the head of the International Energy Agency has said. Fatih Birol, speaking in Canberra, said the IEA’s ability to deploy 400 million barrels of oil on March 11 — the largest emergency action in its history — had provided crucial cushioning for global markets at a moment of extreme supply shock. He described the overall crisis as equivalent to the combined force of the 1970s twin oil shocks and the Ukraine gas emergency.
Birol said the March 11 release had demonstrated the value of the strategic reserve system built by the IEA following the 1973 oil crisis. But he also noted that the initial release represented just 20 percent of available stocks, suggesting that the system had been built with sufficient scale to handle a crisis of this magnitude. He said further releases remained possible if conditions required them, with active consultations ongoing across three continents.
The conflict began February 28 with US and Israeli strikes on Iran and has since removed 11 million barrels of oil per day and 140 billion cubic metres of gas from world markets. At least 40 Gulf energy assets have been severely damaged, and the Hormuz strait — through which approximately 20 percent of global oil flows — remains closed. These combined disruptions have created the most severe energy supply emergency in modern history.
Birol called for demand-side policies including remote work, lower speed limits, and reduced commercial aviation. He met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and said the IEA was committed to using every tool available to support member governments through the crisis. He said the lesson about reserve value applied not just to oil but also to gas reserves, and that governments needed to review their overall emergency energy storage strategies.
Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum to Iran to reopen the strait expired without result, and Iran threatened retaliatory strikes on US and allied energy and water infrastructure. Birol warned that strategic reserves, while critically valuable, were finite and that the real solution remained reopening the Hormuz strait and restoring Gulf energy production capacity. He concluded that the crisis had proven the value of strategic reserves and equally proven the need to maintain them at sufficient scale going forward.