The IEA will release as much as 400m barrels of oil into the market amid rising prices. Photograph: Arash Khamooshi/The New York TimesThe International Energy Agency (IEA) will release as many as 400 million barrels of oil from its reserves in an unprecedented move to counteract the Iran war’s impact on global energy prices. “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,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a statement. The country plans to make available about 15 days of private sector reserves and a month’s worth of State reserves. This is the sixth time the IEA has tapped its reserves during a crisis.

Source: The Irish Times March 11, 2026 20:19 UTC