The Conversation Weekly

Buried underground in caverns dug out of salt on the Gulf coast of the US are millions of barrels worth of crude oil. This is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, built up in the late 1970s.
Globally, at the end of 2025, global strategic oil stockpiles were estimated at 2.5 billion barrels, with China holding the most.
With the Strait of Hormuz now closed for more than two months, global oil supplies are being squeezed. In March, as part of a co-ordinated move by members of the International Energy Agency to release 400 million barrels of oil to prevent price spikes, the US began releasing 172 million barrels from its strategic reserves.
In this episode, we speak to Scott Montgomery, a former petroleum geologist who lectures in international studies at the University of Washington, about why these oil stockpiles were built up in the first place, and how they work.
This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Katie Flood with production assistance from Katie Flood. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
Why Middle East gas field attacks could send energy prices soaring
Why the Persian Gulf has more oil and gas than anywhere else on Earth
War in the Middle East made the case for renewables – what’s happening in each country tells a harder story
The government’s plans to bolster Australia’s fuel stores are sensible – but 5 years too late
Over 400 million barrels will be added to the oil market soon – what are strategic reserves and what can they do?

Mentioned in this episode:
Voices of the South

The month Javier Milei took over as president of Argentina in December 2023, monthly inflation was 25.5%. The annual rate for that year was 211%. Now, it’s plummeted to 32% – still very high, but more stable.
Milei, a right-wing populist famous for wielding a chainsaw on stage to make a point about fiscal conservatism, made cutting inflation a central part of his campaign.
And yet economists like Can Cinar from City St George's, University of London, warn that Milei’s battle against inflation is more of a mirage, than a miracle. In this episode, Cinar explains how Milei’s government managed to cut inflation by deliberately suppressing people’s wages, and the stark impact these policies are having on Argentinians.
This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware with production assistance from Katie Flood. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
Kemi Badenoch says she wants to be Britain’s Javier Milei – but is the Argentinian president a model to follow?
What’s inflation – and how exactly do we measure it?
Javier Milei’s victory in Argentina’s midterm elections is also a win for Trump
Currency controls and debt in Argentina: the stakes are high if Milei’s latest economic gamble doesn’t pay off
Javier Milei’s inflation ‘miracle’ in Argentina is a warning to the world, not a blueprint

Mentioned in this episode:
Voices of the South

As the revelations from the Epstein files continue to reverberate around the globe, those conspiracy theorists who were among the first to call for the release of information about Jeffrey Epstein's legal cases are feeling vindicated.
Before his death, Epstein already featured in many fringe online forums, including those centred on the Qanon conspiracy narrative that the world is run by an elite cabal of child sex traffickers. Now, many in these communities are saying "We told you so."
In this episode, Art Jipson, a sociologist at the University of Dayton in Ohio, who researches social movements and extremism, explains what happened when a real-life criminal case collided with an online community built on conspiracy theories.
This episode was produced by Katie Flood, with assistance from Mend Mariwany. The executive producer was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
Mentioned in this episode:
Voices of the South

As Xi Jinping prepares to host Donald Trump for a delayed summit in Beijing on May 14-15, a lot has changed since the US president's last visit to China in November 2017. Trump's first trade war with China began in earnest the following year, ushering in a new era of trade tensions between the world's two largest economies.
While Trump's second trade war raged in 2025, China reported a record trade surplus of US$1.2 trillion. Yes, direct trade with the US fell sharply, but China shifted its focus elsewhere, doubling down on an existing "great reallocation".
In this episode, we speak to economist Jiao Wang at the University of Sussex, about how decisions China took over the past two decades meant it was able to protect itself from the worst of Trump's tariff wars.
This episode was produced by Mend Mariwany and the executive producer was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
Supreme Court’s tariff decision still leaves a ‘mess’ for companies trying to grab refunds
With a shrinking population, China needs new drivers of growth. Consumer spending has yet to fill the gap
Amid rising tensions, ‘friendshoring’ might keep global trade alive
Have US tariffs failed to bite? China’s trade surplus hits a record US$1.2 trillion

Mentioned in this episode:
Voices of the South

After Donald Trump took to social media to lambast Pope Leo's criticism of the Iran war, the pontiff told journalists "I'm not afraid of the Trump administration". Part of the war of words between Trump and Leo is a question over whether the Iran war is a just one.
Just war theory, first articulated by St Augustine in the fifth century, outlines the church’s moral guidelines for political and military leaders to consider before choosing to go to war. But it’s not static, and the church’s own position has become more restrictive in recent years.
In this episode, Gerard Powers, the director of Catholic Peace Building Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, explains how the Catholic church’s just war tradition evolved and the influence it’s had on US military thinking. Powers was a senior advisor on international policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops during the Iraq war, and was involved in efforts to persuade the Bush administration not to invade.
He sets out the difficulty now facing Catholics serving in the US military, whose archbishop has now spoken out against the war they’re being asked to fight
This episode was produced by Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany and the executive producer was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.