You know that scene in "Don't Look Up" where the scientists are screaming that the meteor is coming and the politicians just keep arguing about approval ratings? Yeah. Welcome to the G-7 and global energy policy.
The cold, hard truth
Oil prices are soaring. The barrel is charging up like a bull in Pamplona. And what do the seven richest countries on the planet — which together consume an obscene amount of energy per day — do? They decide NOT to touch the strategic emergency reserves.
That's right. The famous Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR), those massive stockpiles stashed in salt caverns across the United States and underground depots around the world, just sit there. Nice and quiet. Untouched. While prices at the pump eat everyone alive.
But what are these reserves, anyway?
For those who don't speak finance-ese: strategic petroleum reserves are that emergency stash countries build up to use in a real crisis — war, embargo, natural disaster. It's like that cash your grandma kept under the mattress "for when things really hit the fan."
The question is: who gets to decide what "really hitting the fan" looks like?
When the U.S. opened the SPR floodgates in 2022, it was in the context of the war in Ukraine and runaway inflation. Biden released the largest amount of reserves in American history — nearly 180 million barrels. Prices dropped. Temporarily. And then climbed right back up, because the underlying problem was never fixed: the world is still hooked on oil and supply is tight.
The twisted logic of "let's wait and see"
The G-7's decision not to touch the reserves has a logic — a crooked one, but still.
First: releasing reserves is a shot you can only fire a few times. It's like holding an ace up your sleeve that you save for exactly the right moment in a poker game. If you play it every time prices jump 10%, when a real supply crisis hits — a blockade at the Strait of Hormuz, for example — you're sitting on an empty tank.
Second: G-7 countries already have lower reserves than they'd like. The U.S. especially. After that massive 2022 release, restocking at high oil prices is like trying to fill a water tank during a drought. It makes zero economic sense.
Third — and this is where the political cynicism lives: nobody wants to look weak. Tapping into reserves is admitting you've lost control of the situation. And G-7 leaders, especially in election years, would rather push the narrative that "everything's under control" than make an unpopular decision that acknowledges vulnerability.
Who foots the bill?
You. Me. The guy driving Uber 12 hours a day. The trucking company hauling food to rural towns. The corner store owner passing freight costs onto the price of rice.
While the G-7 plays geopolitical chess, energy inflation spreads like a silent virus across the entire supply chain. Nassim Taleb would say these leaders have no skin in the game — they don't pump their own gas, they don't get sticker shock from the electric bill, they don't feel the squeeze that ordinary people feel.
What does this mean for Brazil?
Brazil is a special case in this story. We're major oil producers, so in theory we benefit from high prices. Petrobras profits, royalties fatten up municipal coffers, the pre-salt fields deliver.
But theory slams into reality. Because we're also a country that imports refined products, has a forever-politicized fuel pricing policy, and suffers from a logistics system absurdly dependent on trucks — read: diesel.
Oil going up out there means inflationary pressure in here. And the Central Bank, already walking a tightrope with the Selic rate, really appreciates the extra headache. Thanks, G-7.
The question they don't want to answer
What exactly do strategic reserves exist for? To protect whom? If the answer is "to protect the country's stability in moments of crisis," then explain this to me: record-high energy prices eroding people's purchasing power isn't enough of a crisis?
Or maybe "emergency," in the G-7's vocabulary, only means when oil stops flowing altogether — not when people can no longer afford to pay for it?
Think about that next time you fill up your tank.
