New Delhi, March 13 -- The 32 member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA) are expected to release a collective 400 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves in a bid to cool market prices.

This has been billed as its largest ever oil release. It's more than double the 182 million barrels released by the IEA in 2022 after the Ukraine war broke out, four times the world's daily usage and about a third of its members' total stash.

Will it make a difference? What we must look at is the flow of oil, not its stock. On average, 2025 saw about 14 million barrels of crude oil (and 5 million barrels of oil products) exit the Gulf daily via Hormuz. By one estimate, IEA stocks can flow out at a daily maximum rate of 3 milli...