Saudi Aramco Chief Executive Amin Nasser warned analysts on a Monday, May 11, 2026, conference call that the global oil market is losing roughly 100 million barrels of supply each week as the Strait of Hormuz disruption stretches into its twelfth week. Nasser added that if reopening of the strait is “delayed by a few more weeks, then normalization will last into 2027.” The remarks mark the most explicit timeline guidance from any major producer since the conflict began in late February and align Aramco’s public position with the broader industry expectation that post-conflict recovery will be slow.
Aramco’s framing is particularly significant because the company is the world’s largest crude exporter and one of the principal beneficiaries of the bypass infrastructure that has kept some Saudi crude flowing throughout the conflict. The East-West Pipeline to Yanbu has operated at its full 5 million barrels-per-day capacity since the strait closed, and Saudi Arabia has been the primary supplier of marginal crude to Asian and European buyers cut off from Persian Gulf flows. That Aramco is now publicly modeling a 2027 normalization timeline suggests the company sees structural rather than transitory impairment.
The 100 million barrels per week figure reconciles with the IEA’s estimate that the conflict is removing roughly 14 million barrels per day from global supply — or approximately 98 million barrels per week. The IEA has called the disruption the largest supply shock on record. Goldman Sachs, Barclays, and Citi have all tightened their full-year forecasts during the conflict; Citi’s base case currently assumes the regime makes a deal that reopens the strait around end-May, but the bank flags downside risk that the timeline is pushed out and/or a partial reopening leaves disruptions in place for longer.
Three structural factors support the 2027 timeline that Nasser articulated. First, Gulf Cooperation Council production facilities have sustained damage during the conflict — including the May 4 Iranian drone strike on the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone — that will require capital investment and time to repair before pre-conflict throughput is restored. Second, insurers have substantially tightened war-risk coverage for tankers transiting the strait, with several major underwriters quietly suspending coverage entirely; restoring full insurance markets will require sustained absence of hostilities rather than just a paper agreement. Third, vessel rescheduling, port slot allocation, and refinery feedstock contracts that were built around Hormuz throughput will take months to renormalize even once shipping resumes.
The Monday warning came on the same day that crude futures rallied roughly 5% after President Trump publicly rejected Iran’s counterproposal to end the conflict, calling it “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE” and threatening to resume bombing “at a much higher level and intensity than it was before.” WTI advanced 4.96% to $100.30 per barrel; Brent gained 4.92% to $105.76. The combination of explicit timeline guidance from the world’s largest producer and renewed escalation rhetoric from the U.S. President reframed market expectations for the rest of the year.
For Saudi Arabia, the timeline matters in multiple dimensions. The Kingdom is currently absorbing significant fiscal benefit from elevated crude prices but bearing reputational and security costs from the conflict itself, including increased Iranian harassment of GCC infrastructure. Aramco’s Q1 2026 net income reached $26.7 billion, up sharply year-over-year despite production constraints, on the back of higher realized prices. But Aramco has also signaled to investors that the cash-flow tailwind is partially offset by the need for elevated capital expenditure on bypass infrastructure, security spending, and acceleration of upstream projects that were previously phased over multiple years.
Investor reaction to Nasser’s warning was modestly positive for oil-leveraged names. Major U.S. supermajors rallied 2–3% in afternoon trading; European integrateds underperformed slightly on euro-strength concerns. The 2027 normalization framework, if it holds, supports the bullish equity case for upstream producers while raising the cost of capital for downstream and petrochemical operations exposed to high input prices for an extended period. For continuing coverage, see our live oil prices dashboard and geopolitics dashboard.