March 10, 2026 | 07:23 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) countries discussed the possible coordinated release of oil reserves in a virtual meeting on Monday, March 9, 2026. The meeting also involved the International Energy Agency (IEA), amid soaring oil prices due to the United States (US) and Israel's war on Iran.
"We agreed to take measures to support global energy supply and other necessary steps," said Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama to reporters after the meeting as reported by Kyodo and quoted by Antara.
She added that the IEA called for efforts towards a coordinated release of oil reserves to be made promptly.
She also stated that G7 energy ministers will hold discussions in the near future to address the details of the possible release of oil reserves.
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol, who also participated in the G7 finance ministers' meeting, said in a statement that the global oil market conditions "have deteriorated in recent days," citing a reduction in oil production and challenges in transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
"This is creating significant and growing risks for the market. We discussed all the available options, including making IEA emergency oil stocks available to the market," he said in the statement.
According to the IEA, member countries currently hold over 1.2 billion barrels of public emergency oil reserves, with an additional approximately 600 million barrels of industry-held reserves based on government obligations.
The US and Japan together hold about 700 million barrels of the total public oil reserves.
French Finance Minister Roland Lescure reportedly said after the meeting that G7 members have not made a decision regarding the possible release of emergency oil reserves.
In recent years, coordinated releases of oil reserves by the IEA were carried out in 2022 to maintain oil market stability after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In 2022, IEA member countries agreed to collectively release over 180 million barrels of oil. Japan decided to release a total of 22.5 million barrels from its private and public oil reserves.
Financial Times, which first reported on the G7 discussions before the meeting took place, mentioned that the US was among the countries expressing support for a joint release of oil reserves.
The newspaper also reported that some US officials viewed a joint release in the range of 300 million to 400 million barrels, or about 25 to 30 percent of the total 1.2 billion barrel reserves, as a potentially appropriate move, citing a source who requested anonymity.
The Group of Seven (G7) consists of seven major advanced economies in the world, including the US, United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Germany, Canada, and France.
This group focuses on global economic, security, and energy issues, and is supported by the European Union as a non-enumerated member.
As a non-enumerated member, the European Union is actively supported and supporting the group, but its formal status differs from the listed main member countries.
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