Switzerland has reserves to cover national needs for petroleum products for 4.5 months and for kerosene for 3 months.
Keystone-SDA
Switzerland’s energy supply is secure despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, according to government officials.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
A meeting of a national committee responsible for energy supply security was held on Tuesday, attended by Economics Minister Guy Parmelin and Energy Minister Albert Rösti.
The committee will meet again “as soon as a change in the situation emerges”, the Federal Council said in a statement.
The group’s last meeting was in March 2022, a few weeks after the start of the war in Ukraine.
In view of the current stability of supply in Switzerland, the Federal Council has no legal basis to intervene in the market. But if a serious shortage were to emerge, measures prepared in advance, such as the release of mandatory oil reserves, would be implemented.
More
More
Climate adaptation
US oil buoys Swiss fossil fuel needs amid Middle East conflict
This content was published on
Mar 17, 2026
The conflict in the Middle East has disrupted the global transport of oil and gas. A look at where the fossil fuels consumed in Switzerland come from.
Read more: US oil buoys Swiss fossil fuel needs amid Middle East conflict
Global impact
The conflict in the Middle East has caused energy prices to rise and has had an impact on global energy supply.
Switzerland announced last week that it would not participate for now in the voluntary release of oil reserves by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
According to the government, these reserves are held by the companies that market the products. They can cover national needs for petroleum products for 4.5 months and for kerosene for 3 months, a spokesperson for the Federal Office for National Economic Supply (FONES) told the Keystone-ATS news agency.
This corresponds to approximately 14.5 million barrels of petrol and diesel, 8.6 million barrels of heating oil and 2.4 million barrels of kerosene.
More
More
Foreign Affairs
Where Switzerland stands on the Iran war
This content was published on
Mar 11, 2026
Neutral Switzerland’s position in the Middle East conflict is sensitive regarding the United States.
Read more: Where Switzerland stands on the Iran war
Adapted from French by AI/sb
How we work
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
Articles in this story