Amin H. Nasser, the president and chief executive of Saudi Aramco, told an energy forum in London that the Strait of Hormuz disruption was “the most serious energy supply shock in my career”. “The system is already straining,” he said, and “the supply resilience cushion is scarily thin.”
Nasser made the remarks at the Energy Intelligence Forum on October 5, 2026, in his first in-person public address since the US-Israel war with Iran began.
The near-closure of the strait lasted long enough to disrupt the normal flow of roughly 20 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products a day. Nearly 3 billion barrels of gross supply have been lost since the disruption began, about half the crude and products that would normally have passed through Hormuz over the same period.
The world entered the crisis with almost 10 billion barrels of oil stocks. More than 1 billion barrels have since been drawn from reserves around the world, leaving less than 6 billion barrels of commercial inventory. The vast majority of what remains in storage is not practically accessible.
Governments have turned to emergency stocks for relief. The G7 decided on October 2 to release 100 million barrels through the International Energy Agency over four months, including a front-loaded diesel release within the first 20 days. IEA members had already released around 325 million barrels of the 400 million barrels pledged in March.
For Nasser, that is a temporary answer to a structural problem. “Emergency reserves might buy us a winter. They cannot fix long-term supply,” he said.
Saudi Arabia has one established alternative to Hormuz: the East-West pipeline, which carries crude from eastern oilfields to the Red Sea. Nasser said Brent could have reached $200 per barrel without that route. The pipeline has been restored to about 80% of capacity after an attack.
Aramco is now studying additional crude export routes and more overseas storage, Nasser said, to reduce its reliance on individual shipping corridors. Saudi Arabia is considering a pipeline to Duqm Port in Oman, a preferred destination for a route that could send exports directly to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean without passing through either the Strait of Hormuz or the Red Sea.
The proposed pipeline carries an estimated cost of $7 billion. It puts a blunt question behind the engineering: infrastructure that protects importers and consumers from a supply shock will require someone to pay for it.
Rebuilding the oil already consumed could take up to two years after Hormuz fully reopens, while global demand continues. “Until Hormuz fully re-opens and confidence returns, the crude reality is that pressure at both ends of the barrel will intensify,” Nasser said.
The stakes reach far beyond the oil market. Half the world’s proven oil reserves and most of its spare production capacity are in the Middle East. Petrochemicals are used to make more than 9 out of 10 manufactured goods. The International Monetary Fund has modelled a severe scenario in which global economic growth falls to just 2% next year and inflation rises above 6%.
In the US, diesel prices reached a record $6.53 per gallon in the week ending September 21, 2026, before easing to $6.38 per gallon by September 28.
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