{"id":17939,"date":"2026-07-17T15:26:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T03:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17939"},"modified":"2026-07-17T15:26:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T03:26:33","slug":"global-energy-security-at-risk-if-strait-of-hormuz-does-not-open-in-weeks-iea-chief-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17939","title":{"rendered":"Global energy security at risk if Strait of Hormuz does not open in weeks, IEA chief says"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If the United States and Iran do not increase oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz soon, the world should worry about energy security, International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Oil security is still a critical issue,” Birol told a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington. “We should be worried, and I am worried, if the situation does not improve in the next few weeks.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that normally carries about one-fifth of the world’s energy shipments, has been mostly blocked since the conflict began on 28 February\u00a0with US and Israeli strikes on Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Despite sharp energy price increases, Birol said several factors had moderated the rise. These included China’s stockpile, which totalled more than 1 billion barrels of oil before the war; its oil conservation through increased use of electric vehicles and public transport; and a coordinated release by the International Energy Agency (IEA) of up to\u00a0400 million barrels of oil<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But those fixes “can’t last forever”, Birol said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He has earlier called the Iran war the worst energy disruption in history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Birol said a boost in production by the United States, the world’s top oil and gas producer, had helped.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“The US increase in production is very good … The US increased 1 million, 2 million but it cannot increase 10 million” barrels a day of crude oil output, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The oil and gas supply crisis had hurt economies around the world but in an asymmetric way, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“It is mainly Asia, because Asia was getting 80 to 90 percent of this energy from the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Japan and South Korea had suffered but developing countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh and India\u00a0had been hit hardest<\/a>, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Birol highlighted potential health risks for people in developing countries, especially women, who have turned to alternative cooking fuels including dung and wood with more hazardous emissions as petroleum products have become unaffordable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Oil prices fell about US$20 (NZ$34) a barrel after the coordinated IEA release in March, and the action signalled to markets that the organisation representing more than 30 countries could tap reserves again if things get worse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Even though it was huge,” Birol said of the up to 400-million-barrel release, “it was only 20 percent of the stocks we have, 80 percent is still in the pocket.”<\/p>\n

Source: Reuters & RNZ<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If the United States and Iran do not increase oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz soon, the world should worry about energy security, International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol said on Thursday. “Oil security is still a critical issue,” Birol told a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington. “We should be worried, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17941,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17939\/revisions\/17941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}