HOUSTON—The oil futures market has not fully priced in the scale of the supply disruption triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said Monday.
“There are very real,physical manifestations of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz that are working their way around the world and through the system that I don’t think are fully priced into the futures curves on oil,”Wirth said at S&P Global’s CERAWeek conference here.
Oil prices plunged more than 10%on Monday after President Donald Trump told CNBC that he is“very intent on making a deal with Iran.”Trump postponed strikes on Iran’s power plants for five days after talks with Iran that he described as productive.
The U.S.crude oil contract for May delivery closed at$88.13 per barrel.Brent prices,the international benchmark,settled at$99.94 per barrel.
The U.S.oil contract for August delivery is trading around$81 per barrel,suggesting the market believes the disruption will ease in the coming weeks and months.
But the market is trading on“scant information”and“perception,”Wirth said.The physical supply of oil is tighter than the futures contracts suggest,he said.
“We got a lot of oil and gas now that is not flowing into the market,”the Chevron CEO said.“There really is a difference in terms of physical supply this time versus prior incidents.”
It will take time to rebuild inventories even if the strait reopens,Wirth said.About 20%of world oil supplies flowed through the narrow sea route,which connects the Persian Gulf to the global market,before the war started.Oil tanker traffic has plunged due to Iranian attacks on commercial shipping.
Gulf Arab producers have cut output because they cannot export through the strait.Iranian missile and drone attacks have also damaged energy infrastructure in the Middle East.Some governments are also imposing policies to hold stocks at home and reduce exports,Wirth said.
“How quickly that production can actually come back online is an uncertainty that we’re going to have to deal with as we go forward,”Wirth said.“It’s going to take some time to come out of this.”
