In an unprecedented move to stabilise global energy markets rocked by the escalating West Asia conflict, the 32-member International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from emergency reserves, one of the largest coordinated stock releases in the agency’s history.The decision followed an extraordinary meeting of IEA member governments convened to assess the severe supply disruptions triggered by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which has dramatically curtailed oil shipments through the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz.IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said the scale of the intervention reflected the gravity of the current crisis.“The oil market challenges we are facing are unprecedented in scale. I am very glad that IEA member countries have responded with an emergency collective action of unprecedented size,” Birol said, adding that global disruptions required a coordinated global response.Oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz — a maritime chokepoint linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman — have plunged to less than 10 per cent of pre-conflict levels since the war began on February 28, severely constraining exports of crude and refined petroleum products from the region.The waterway is among the world’s most critical energy corridors, with around 20 million barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum products — roughly a quarter of global seaborne oil trade — passing through it in 2025. With few viable alternative routes, producers across the region have been forced to shut in or curtail significant volumes of output.IEA members collectively hold more than 1.2 billion barrels of strategic oil reserves, supplemented by an additional 600 million barrels of industry stocks maintained under government obligations.Officials said the emergency oil will be released into global markets according to national circumstances across member countries and may be supplemented by additional measures taken by individual governments.The coordinated release marks the sixth collective intervention by the Paris-based energy watchdog since its creation in 1974 following the global oil crisis. Previous emergency actions were undertaken during the Gulf War, after Hurricane Katrina disrupted US energy infrastructure, during the Libya civil war oil disruption, and twice in 2022 amid market turmoil following the Ukraine war.The IEA Secretariat said it would shortly outline the operational details of the stock release and continue to closely monitor developments in global oil and gas markets as the geopolitical crisis in West Asia continues to unfold.