Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, has called for full transparency and global accounting of all emergency energy measures taken by nations in response to the Iran crisis, warning that without such transparency, coordination efforts would be hampered by information gaps and potential mistrust. Speaking in Canberra, the IEA chief said the effectiveness of the collective international response depended on every nation being honest about what it was deploying, hoarding, or holding back. He described the overall crisis as equivalent to the combined force of the 1970s twin oil shocks and the Ukraine gas emergency.
Birol said one of the challenges in coordinating the global response was that different nations were taking different emergency actions — reserve releases, demand restrictions, price controls, export limitations — without full transparency to the international community about what they were doing. This made it difficult to assess the true state of global supply and demand, allocate available resources optimally, and identify where international support was most urgently needed.
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. The IEA deployed 400 million barrels from strategic reserves on March 11 in its largest emergency action.
Birol confirmed further releases were under consideration and said the IEA was consulting with governments across Europe, Asia, and North America. He 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 Australia’s transparent engagement with the IEA’s data-sharing mechanisms was a model for other nations.
Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum to Iran to reopen the strait expired without result, and Tehran threatened retaliatory strikes on US and allied energy and water infrastructure. Birol concluded by calling for all nations to provide the IEA with full and timely data on their emergency energy actions. He said transparency was not just a governance nicety — in a crisis of this scale, it was an operational necessity that directly affected the effectiveness of the international response.