IEA to Release 4 Billion Barrels by Hand, One Jerrycan at a Time, Starting Monday
The International Energy Agency has pledged to speed up its emergency stock release by abandoning pipelines and personally carrying every barrel to market, a logistical feat officials describe as «the largest act of manual labor since the pyramids.»
The International Energy Agency announced Monday that it will release its entire emergency oil reserve by hand, with staff members personally carrying jerrycans from underground caverns to the nearest refinery, a process expected to take eleven years and employ every able-bodied person in the member states.
«We have abandoned the pumps,» said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol, standing beside a human chain stretching from a salt cavern in Texas to a tanker terminal in Rotterdam. «Every barrel will be touched by human hands. This is what supply security looks like when you truly commit.»
The agency has requisitioned all wheelbarrows, shopping carts and luggage trolleys in Europe and North America. Schools have canceled recess so children can form relay lines. The German government has retrained its entire forestry service as jerrycan porters, and France has converted the Tour de France route into a permanent oil corridor.
Oil prices rose sharply as traders watched the first convoy of 80,000 volunteers depart from a cavern in Louisiana, each carrying two cans and a packed lunch. «We are no longer waiting for the market to calm down,» Birol said. «We are the market now, and we are walking.»
By Thursday, the IEA had moved enough oil to fill a single Olympic swimming pool, a pace officials called «ahead of schedule.»
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