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40Crude oil has one of the deepest futures markets in the world. What do traders on these markets think will happen to the price of oil?
In late Feb 2026, before the Israel–Iran war began, Brent crude was about $70 per barrel.
Today Brent is about $94–95 per barrel.
The Brent futures market is pricing oil about six months from now at roughly $82–84 per barrel.
The Brent futures market is pricing oil about twelve months from now at roughly $78–80 per barrel.
That doesn't sound too bad. I don't know how to interpret those numbers though, so I searched for statements by people that do. I found that
The IEA's Executive Director has said the combined impacts amount to "the greatest threat to global energy security in history." The war in the region that began on 28 February has impeded energy trade flows through the Strait, creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.
1There's a conspiracybrained answer that "they're pushing down the futures", but like... who? With what money?
However, there's also a mass-human-ignorance answer that "the traders put more stock in the Trump Iran Deal Imminent press release cycle than they should".
Or like, maybe they expect a bloody ground invasion to restore Hormuz and production capacity... that also wraps up everything within a year?
Am interested in others' thoughts here (possible leading-indicators to look for, alternative hypotheses, etc), that's what this thread is for!
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One key question to model: How long until certain operational minimums are tripped in the US? (Explanation: Refineries and other facilities can't run with a too-small nonzero amount of oil.)
I would conjecture that this would never happen due to this particular war.
Basically, the US is currently a net exporter of oil (unlike some earlier periods in its history), and the government can impose export restrictions if necessary.
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We're in a slow-motion fuel crisis, already baked into the counterfactual petroleum supply gap. Even if the Iran War ended, immediately and completely and unambiguously, the fuel crisis would still be happening.
How will humanity respond to this?
Leaders, governments, corporations, individuals, and militaries are all notoriously hard to predict. This is the thread for trying anyway.
(Note: This thread is about the petroleum supply disruption downstream of the Iran War, not the Iran War itself. oil production and distribution would not recover to prewar levels for months or years.)