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Global oil demand will fall by one million barrels a day in 2026, the IEA said on Friday, making it the first annual contraction since 2020, when Covid lockdowns grounded aviation and shuttered industry.
The comparison flatters this year’s decline in one respect, since demand collapsed by around eight million barrels a day at the height of the pandemic, but it underlines how severely the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has damaged the global economy.
The contraction is “highly skewed in both product and regional terms”, the agency noted in its monthly report.
Earlier IEA analysis traced the sharpest losses to Asia’s import-dependent economies and to petrochemical feedstocks such as naphtha and liquefied petroleum gas, whose supply chains run through the Strait of Hormuz.
At the time of writing, the front month contract on Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading at around $76 a barrel, roughly 6% higher than before the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February, and far below the peaks near $120 reached in March at the height of the conflict.
The US benchmark, WTI, was trading lower at around $72 a barrel.
June’s fragile rebound
Supply improved sharply last month, if from a desperately low base.
Global production jumped by 4.1 million barrels a day in June to 98.8 million as the partial reopening of the Strait of Hormuz allowed Gulf producers to restart shut-in wells, though output was still running 9.4 million barrels a day beneath its pre-war level.
Gulf exports, counting cargoes rerouted around the strait, climbed by 6.5 million barrels a day to 16.1 million. Before the fighting began in late February, the region shipped an average of 24 million barrels.
Global oil inventories grew for the first time since US and Israeli strikes on Iran ignited the conflict, halting months of record drawdowns, although stockpiles in the wealthiest economies shrank further as buyers held back from importing.
The truce unravels
The IEA’s forecasts rest on an assumption now under visible strain which is that a ceasefire holds and the Strait of Hormuz gradually reopens.
On that basis, global supply would contract by 3.7 million barrels a day this year, leaving production 860,000 barrels a day short of demand, before expanding by 7.5 million next year and tipping the market into surplus.
Stronger output elsewhere and weaker demand than expected before the war could still restore a surplus by the end of the year, allowing countries to rebuild depleted reserves, the IEA noted.
This week brought the second and far larger breach of last month’s truce.
After Iranian forces struck three commercial vessels on Monday and Tuesday, US Central Command hit more than 80 targets across Iran, including air defences, coastal radar and over 60 Revolutionary Guard small boats, while Washington revoked the licence permitting Iranian oil exports.
Iran fired drones and missiles at Bahrain and Kuwait, causing no major damage, and US President Donald Trump has since declared the ceasefire over.
Tehran insists the only safe passage is the route it sets in the Strait of Hormuz as traffic fell to 13 tankers on Wednesday, against an average of 33 a day the previous week, according to shipping data from Kpler.
Additional sources • AFP