Saudi Arabia is the largest oil seller on the planet. Even its CEO is saying this one is too big to fix fast.
The firm now thinks oil markets may not be back to normal until 2027 if the loss keeps dragging on.
Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said the world has lost about 1 billion barrels of oil since the Iran war started. He called the shock the largest the global oil market has ever faced.
The losses are still piling up. Nasser said the world is missing about 100 million barrels of supply every week.
That will keep going as long as the Strait of Hormuz stays closed to most tankers. Before the war, about 20% of the world's oil moved through that strait each day.
That share alone makes it the biggest oil choke point on the planet.
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The firm has been moving more oil through a pipeline that skips Hormuz. The line crosses Saudi land from east to west.
It is now running at its full 7 million barrels a day. About 2 million go to plants on Saudi's west coast.
The other 5 million are loaded onto ships at the Yanbu port for export. The firm is now looking at ways to grow that port and add more room.
Saudi Arabia also cut its own oil output by 2 million barrels a day. That came after Iran went after tankers in the strait.
Pulling barrels off the market while ships are already cut off is rare. It shows how broken the system has become.
Iran has been hitting tankers in the strait since the war started. That has scared off most shippers from the route.
Even if the strait reopens next week, Nasser said open routes are not enough. The world has to refill the supply gap, and years of low spending on new wells made the system thin before the war ever started.
For drivers, that means high gas prices may not be a short-term spike. For firms, the cost of moving freight stays high.
That can keep food, retail, and shipping prices up. For rate setters, the price math gets harder for more time.
Some nations have tapped their backup oil stocks to ease the pain. Those stocks were built for short shocks, not year-long ones, and they will not last if the strait stays mostly shut.
The fix-it clock now runs on two things: when tanker traffic through Hormuz comes back, and how much oil Saudi and other firms can add once it does.
Until both of those move, the world keeps losing 100 million barrels a week. That is a steep bill, and it gets paid one way or another - at the pump, the store, or the rate desk.
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