Get audio access with any FP subscription. Subscribe Now ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

Get audio access with any FP subscription.

ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

We’ve lifted the paywall. Foreign Policy’s coverage of the Iran war is free to read for a limited time.

The United States and dozens of other developed economies broke the glass on Wednesday and announced the largest-ever emergency release of oil reserves in a desperate bid to calm rattled energy markets—and it didn’t work. 

Crude oil went back over $100 a barrel, and the situation is only getting worse, as Iran intensifies its attacks on tankers in the Persian Gulf and on energy and port infrastructure in nearby Gulf countries.

The United States and dozens of other developed economies broke the glass on Wednesday and announced the largest-ever emergency release of oil reserves in a desperate bid to calm rattled energy markets—and it didn’t work. 

Crude oil went back over $100 a barrel, and the situation is only getting worse, as Iran intensifies its attacks on tankers in the Persian Gulf and on energy and port infrastructure in nearby Gulf countries.

The reserve release announced Wednesday, of 400 million barrels of oil and oil products, is more than twice as large as the largest release before, including the ones in the early days of the 2022 Russian war on Ukraine. The move, especially the United States’ decision to release almost half of its already-shrunken strategic oil reserves, was a recognition that the conflict with Iran and its disruptions to global energy flows are not likely to end soon, regardless of the Trump administration’s rhetoric about being virtually done with the war.

“Some 400 million barrels of oil shows up and the price goes up. That could be the market starting to understand the dimensions of the problem,” said Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, an energy consultancy in Washington. “On the one hand, the market goes, ‘Oh, thank goodness.’ But on the other hand, the market realizes, ‘Oh, my goodness.’”

Benchmark oil traded right around $100 a barrel Thursday afternoon, an 8 percent........

© Foreign Policy