Work From Home, Carpool and Fly Less to Combat Soaring Oil Prices, IEA Says

The International Energy Agency has advised households, businesses and governments to adopt measures such as working from home and carpooling to curb fuel demand and ease pressure from soaring oil prices.

The Paris-based organization and its member countries last week agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency stocks, the largest reserves distribution in history.

The supply boost aims to counter the disruption caused by the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz—the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to global markets—which has triggered a sharp rise in the price of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and liquefied petroleum gas.

However, “the demand side is also a crucial part of the energy security equation,” the agency said Friday.

The IEA’s recommendations also include slower highway speeds, greater use of public transport and car sharing, cutting nonessential air travel and encouraging electric cooking, among other measures.

Gulf countries have cut oil production by at least 10 million barrels a day, and without a rapid resumption of shipping flows, supply losses are set to increase, the IEA said. “The volume of fuel supply offline now is higher than the supply loss during the oil shock of 1973 that led to the IEA’s creation and any disruption since then.”

Write to Giulia Petroni at giulia.petroni@wsj.com