The current rush to forecast a glut relies on a surface-level reading of tanker traffic. Many vessels moving through the Strait were simply those stuck for months during the height of hostilities, not ships arriving to load fresh crude. Furthermore, the insurance industry remains wary of the Persian Gulf, keeping shipping costs elevated and limiting the number of operators willing to re-enter the region. Energy Aspects’ Amrita Sen recently highlighted that shipping conditions remain far from normalized, contradicting the notion that trade routes have fully reopened.

Production figures reinforce this skepticism. Iraq’s output, while showing a slight improvement to 1.76 million barrels per day, remains a fraction of its pre-war capacity of over 4 million. Restarting shuttered wells across the Gulf is a slow, complex process that cannot be achieved overnight. Even the record-breaking U.S. production of 13.9 million barrels per day cannot compensate for the specific crude grades missing from the global market. Because most global refineries require a mix of heavy and light oil, the U.S. output alone is insufficient to fill the void. Until tanker traffic consistently hits pre-war volumes, declaring a market surplus appears premature.