Russia's War on Ukraine

Russia is a major player in global energy markets. It is one of the world’s top three crude producers, vying for the top spot with Saudi Arabia and the United States. Russia relies heavily on revenues from oil and natural gas, which in 2021 made up 45% of Russia’s federal budget.

Russia is also the world’s second-largest producer of natural gas, behind the United States, and has the world’s largest gas reserves. Russia is the world’s largest gas exporter. In 2021 the country produced 762 bcm of natural gas, and exported approximately 210 bcm via pipeline.

Since the start of the crisis, the IEA has been monitoring the implications of Russia's invasion of Ukraine for global energy markets. IEA member countries have agreed on two occasions to take the exceptional step of releasing oil from their emergency reserves to reduce the strains in markets and send a unified message that there will be no shortfall in supplies as a result of Russia’s invasion.

In the first collective action following the invasion, agreed on 1 March 2022, IEA member countries committed to release 62.7 million barrels of emergency oil stocks. On 1 April, they agreed to make a further 120 million barrels available from emergency reserves, the largest stock release in the IEA’s history, which coincided with the release of additional barrels from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The two coordinated drawdowns in 2022 are the fourth and fifth in the history of the IEA, which was created in 1974. Previous collective actions were taken in 1991, 2005 and 2011.