Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, appeared at the National Press Club in Canberra as part of a 24-hour stopover between Paris and Tokyo. He was mid-circuit through Asian capitals while the Middle East crisis continued disrupting global oil and gas flows. He skipped a prepared speech. What followed was closer to a live briefing.
How bad is it
Birol’s framing was direct. The 1973 and 1979 oil crises each cost the world around five million barrels per day. Combined: ten million. The current disruption has removed eleven million barrels per day. Add the gas losses — about 140 billion cubic metres wiped from supply, versus roughly 75 BCM lost after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and Birol described the aggregate as two oil crises and one gas crisis stacked together. He also noted the disruption extends well beyond oil and gas: petrochemicals, fertilizers, sulfur, and helium are all affected, with downstream consequences for agriculture and food prices if the situation persists.
The IEA’s 400-million-barrel coordinated stock release in March — the largest in the agency’s history, approved unanimously by all 32 member countries — cut prices by $18 per barrel on announcement. The gains were erased when bombing resumed. Birol was clear about what the release was designed to do: reduce economic pain, not solve the supply problem. The only solution, he said, is reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Australia’s specific exposure
Australia holds about 30 days of diesel, 30 days of jet fuel, and 38 days of petrol — well below the IEA’s 90-day membership requirement, which successive Australian governments have failed to meet. Birol described 38 days as a “solid number” for now, with more shipments en route, but said demand-side conservation measures were worth adopting regardless — as preparation rather than emergency response.
On the flip side, Australia’s LNG exports have become more strategically significant than usual. Qatar is currently exporting nothing. Australia is now among the top one or two LNG exporters globally, and Birol described its decades-long track record as a reliable supplier as a genuine asset — more important now than at any prior point.
He was careful on one question about resource taxation. Investors in energy, he said, are sensitive to abrupt policy changes in ways that can cause them to exit markets quickly. For a country with Australia’s reputation for investment predictability, sudden changes to tax regimes carry risk. That said, he acknowledged that Australians, as the owners of the resource endowment, have a legitimate interest in receiving a fair return from it.
The demand-side menu
The IEA released ten demand-reduction recommendations the Friday before the NPC address. They draw on measures tested in Europe after 2022 and include working from home, reducing highway speed limits, and cutting non-essential business air travel. Several countries in the region — Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam — had already adopted some of them by the time Birol arrived in Canberra. He presented them as a menu, not a mandate.
He was asked whether a COVID-style enforcement model was implied. It was not. His point was that these measures demonstrably reduce energy consumption and household costs even outside a crisis — Europe’s experience after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine showed they work.
On fuel rationing specifically: he noted some emerging economies are likely to move toward it sooner than wealthier ones, given weaker currencies and smaller fiscal buffers. The risk of a repeat of the 1970s debt spiral for developing and emerging markets was something he raised more than once.
The transition question
Birol does not see this crisis slowing the energy transition. He sees it accelerating it, for the same reason Europe’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accelerated renewable deployment: domestic energy sources are insulated from geopolitical disruption in ways that imported fossil fuels are not. Security, not climate, becomes the driver.
He pointed to 2024 data: 85% of all new power generation installed globally was renewable, with solar alone accounting for 75% of that. Battery installations grew 40% in a single year. Electric vehicles went from 5% of global car sales five years ago to 25% last year. He expects this crisis to push EV uptake further, including in Australia, where uptake has lagged Europe and China.
On nuclear: Birol has been consistently bullish on a nuclear comeback and said it again here. He called Germany’s decision to shut down its working reactors a historical mistake. He does not think Australia needs to build nuclear plants — the country has more solar potential than it can readily use — but he suggested Australia could position itself as a uranium supplier as nuclear expands elsewhere.
Where Australia fits over the next decade
Birol described Australia as a potential “rising star of the global energy economy,” citing its LNG and critical mineral reserves, its reputation as a reliable trading partner, and what he described as a capable government team. The combination of resource depth, geopolitical credibility, and a predictable investment environment puts Australia in a better position than most to benefit from the structural changes the current crisis is likely to accelerate.
He also raised Africa — half of which still lacks electricity access — as the part of the global energy story that rarely gets discussed, and noted that COP31, co-hosted by Australia and Turkey, could make African electrification a central agenda item. He said Australia’s Chris Bowen had expressed strong support for exactly that.
The ten-year view
Asked to close with a ten-year outlook, Birol listed the trends he sees as durable regardless of how this crisis resolves: solar continuing to grow, wind following closely, nuclear making a sustained return, batteries changing the economics of intermittent renewables, and global energy efficiency improving. Oil and gas will still be in use. The overriding shift, though, is the one he called the “age of electricity” two years ago: electricity demand is growing twice as fast as total energy demand, driven by data centres, electric vehicles, and air conditioning. Who generates how much electricity, at what cost, will increasingly determine economic position. That, he said, is the context in which Australia’s choices over the next decade will matter most.
