As the oil price spiralled to $115 (£86) a barrel at one point early this morning, word emerged of an emergency meeting of the G7 finance ministers. Reports suggested there could be a 300 million barrel release of emergency stockpiles co-ordinated by the International Energy Agency. The speculation alone was enough to temper the rise in prices a bit, but they remain much higher than Friday's close, and way above the pre-conflict levels. This can be of little surprise of course when millions of barrels of crude oil are shut in to the Gulf, and most Gulf countries are now reporting a slowing of their production at best, and at worst force majeure shutdowns - a clause freeing them from liability for failure to supply due to events outside their control. Three hundred million barrels is a massive number. It would be more than double the record previous intervention made in April 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. These reserves have only been tapped five times.…