Oil prices and energy prices remain at the centre of government action after the conflict involving Iran and the wider Middle East disrupted flows through the Strait of Hormuz and pushed crude markets sharply higher.
The International Energy Agency said on 11 March that its 32 member countries had agreed the largest emergency oil stock release in the agency’s history, making 400 million barrels available to the market.
The IEA’s March market report said the conflict had disrupted close to 20 million barrels a day of crude and product exports, showing why fuel prices and energy security have become urgent policy issues well beyond the region.
The first line of response has been emergency supply. The IEA said the collective release was designed to address oil market disruption stemming from the Middle East war. It described the move as an unprecedented collective action, with the aim of limiting price volatility and easing pressure on global supply chains.
The UK joined that action on 11 March. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said Britain would contribute 13.5 million barrels as part of the IEA release, with ministers arguing that this should help prevent short-term supply shocks from feeding into more volatile oil prices.
In Canada, Natural Resources Canada said on 13 March that Ottawa would support the same collective action with 23.6 million Canadian barrels and expand natural gas exports in the coming months to support market stability.
Australia has taken a different but related route. Canberra said it would release up to 20 per cent of the baseline minimum stockholding obligation for petrol and diesel to ease fuel supply chain disruption, especially in regional areas.
Minister Chris Bowen later said that amounted to 762 million litres of petrol and diesel, after demand surged following the bombing of Iran. Australia also said it would publish weekly stock data temporarily to improve market transparency during the disruption.
A second strand of policy is closer scrutiny of petrol prices and retail fuel behaviour. In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority said on 12 March that it would step up monitoring of petrol and diesel prices and bring forward formal requirements for major fuel retailers to supply revenue, cost and sales data.
The watchdog said this would speed up its review of fuel margins since the conflict began and help it test whether pump prices were rising faster than wholesale costs.
The UK government widened that approach on 16 March by announcing more than £50 million of support for low-income households that heat their homes with oil. HM Treasury said kerosene prices had been especially affected by the Middle East conflict and had risen faster than petrol and gas.
