The oil band-aid by Zakir Hall

G7 decided to release up to 100 million barrels of oil and petroleum products from emergency reserves and it is presented as coordinated leadership, market stabilisation and energy security. In reality, it looks increasingly like the political equivalent of putting a plaster over a gunshot wound.

Yes, strategic reserves exist precisely for moments of extraordinary disruption. Nobody should pretend that governments can simply sit and watch fuel prices explode while industries, transport systems and households absorb the shock. But there is a crucial difference between using an emergency reserve to bridge a sudden crisis and repeatedly treating the reserve as a discount warehouse whenever geopolitics becomes inconvenient.

The G7 is beginning to blur that line. The problem is not the 100 million barrels themselves. The problem is the political psychology behind them. Governments want to reassure voters that the petrol station will remain open, diesel will remain affordable and the economy will keep moving. That is understandable. But energy security is not achieved by making the symptoms temporarily less painful. It is achieved by making the patient less vulnerable.

And the patient remains dangerously vulnerable. The Middle East is unstable. Shipping routes can be disrupted. Refineries can be attacked. Sanctions can rearrange global flows overnight. Governments can threaten export restrictions. A war thousands of kilometres away can suddenly become a price shock at a European filling station. This is not a temporary accident in an otherwise healthy system. It is a structural vulnerability built into an energy economy that still depends heavily on fossil fuels moving through a handful of strategically exposed corridors.

Yet instead of confronting that vulnerability with the urgency it deserves, politicians keep reaching for the same emergency cupboard. There is an almost absurd contradiction here. Governments spend years telling citizens that energy independence is a strategic priority, while simultaneously designing emergency policies that make the old dependency easier to tolerate.

Strategic reserves are supposed to buy time. They are not supposed to buy political comfort. Every barrel released today is a barrel that cannot be released tomorrow. Every emergency buffer reduced by political necessity leaves governments with fewer options when the next crisis arrives. And there will be another crisis. That is not pessimism; it is the elementary reality of geopolitics, climate disruption, ageing infrastructure and increasingly militarised energy markets.

The particularly uncomfortable question is what happens if the current crisis lasts much longer than politicians hope. You cannot refill a strategic reserve with a speech. You cannot manufacture crude oil by presidential decree. You cannot restore damaged refineries with a press conference. And you certainly cannot negotiate with geography. The Strait of Hormuz does not care about election calendars, inflation targets or political popularity.

This is where the G7's language about “resilience” becomes almost cynical. Real resilience means reducing dependence, diversifying supply, accelerating renewable generation, electrifying transport, modernising grids, improving storage and reducing the amount of oil required to keep societies functioning. It also means telling citizens an uncomfortable truth: energy security costs money.

The alternative is the politics of the emergency pump, wait for the crisis, empty the reserves, celebrate the fall in prices and postpone the difficult decisions until the next crisis arrives. That is not strategy. It is procrastination with barrels.

The G7 may successfully cool the market for a while. It may even prevent a painful economic shock. Good. Do it if necessary. But then replenish the reserves, publish a credible timetable and, more importantly, use the breathing space to make sure the next emergency requires fewer barrels. Otherwise the strategic reserve becomes something much more dangerous than an insurance policy. It becomes a political sedative. And eventually, like every sedative, it wears off.