{"id":7558,"date":"2026-05-31T01:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T01:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=7558"},"modified":"2026-05-31T01:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T01:08:13","slug":"oil-bosses-warn-prices-will-soar-within-weeks-as-inventories-near-really-really-low-levels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=7558","title":{"rendered":"Oil bosses warn prices will soar within weeks as inventories near ‘really, really low levels’"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

The two biggest U.S. oil companies joined the growing chorus of voices sounding the alarm on the imminent doom global markets could soon face.<\/p>\n

With the Strait of Hormuz still effectively closed, top oil-consuming countries have been rapidly draining their reserves, helping keep crude prices in check. <\/p>\n

But Exxon Senior Vice President Neil Chapman warned at an industry conference on Thursday that such drawdowns can\u2019t go on indefinitely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re approaching unheard of inventory levels,\u201d he said, according to CNBC.\u00a0\u201cI mean really, really low levels. You can debate whether that\u2019s going to hit those really low levels in two weeks or three weeks. Once you get to that point, then you\u2019ll see price shoot up.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, the U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks are deadlocked while the Strait of Hormuz remains a contested waterway. That was on display Saturday, when U.S. forces fired a missile at a blockade runner to disable it after ignoring repeated warnings. <\/p>\n

Iran has also kept up attacks on commercial ships attempting to cross the strait without its authorization, though the U.S. is guiding more ships to safety.<\/p>\n

The U.S. has released about 50 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve since the war with Iran started, sending the stockpile down by 12% to 365 million barrels, the lowest since April 2024.<\/p>\n

But in key regional oil hubs like Cushing, Okla.\u2014where West Texas Intermediate crude is priced\u2014the situation is more dire. Data from Kpler indicates that inventories there have fallen from 33 million barrels nearly two months ago to about 24.5 million, near operational lows of about 20 million barrels.<\/p>\n

JPMorgan has predicted that commercial oil inventories in the developed world could \u201capproach operational stress levels\u201d by early June.\u00a0Capital Economics has said stockpiles in top economies could hit \u201ccritically low levels\u201d by the end of June.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, whether it\u2019s two to three weeks or three to four weeks,\u201d Exxon\u2019s Chapman said on Thursday. \u201cWhat I\u2019m really saying is, once you get to the minimum inventory levels and all-time low inventory levels, there\u2019s only one way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve storage at the Bryan Mound site is seen on October 19, 2022 in Freeport, Texas. <\/p>\n

Brandon Bell\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Similarly, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said at the same conference Thursday that oil prices will likely soon jump as the market\u2019s \u201cshock absorbers\u201d are depleted, weakening its ability to continue absorbing the disruption. <\/p>\n

\u201cOver the next few weeks, we\u2019re likely to see those pressures flow through more directly to physical prices and there\u2019s more upwards pressure that I would expect as we get into June and certainly into July,\u201d he added, according to the Financial Times.<\/p>\n

When the strait first shut down after the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran, analysts predicted crude prices could skyrocket as high as $200 a barrel.<\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t happened as massive releases from oil reserves blunted the impact. At the same time, the U.S. temporarily eased sanctions on supplies from Iran and Russia, while countries in Asia began rationing.<\/p>\n

Wirth acknowledged that oil prices had not risen as much as people had expected, but said he expects governments to focus on building reserves back up as \u201cinsurance\u201d against a future shock, adding more demand and putting upward pressure on prices. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe likelihood that another shock is around the corner is something policymakers are going to have to bear in mind\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. how long they want to roll the dice before they refill inventories is a question that I think we\u2019re going to see policymakers have to grapple with,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Karen Young, a senior researcher at Columbia\u2019s Center on Global Energy Policy, said the best-case scenario is for oil flows to return in 60 days.<\/p>\n

But the more likely scenario is that they come back intermittently, dragging the timeline into next year. As a result, markets must deal with the fallout from inventory depletion and industrial disruption, she said in a post on X on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cA new normal is a higher energy price environment until demand declines,\u201d Young added. \u201cA new regional normal is a constant threat environment, costly infrastructure diversions and redundancies, asymmetrical violence risk and hardened security surveillance states. Hardly a prescription for growth or trust. Supply shock to price shock to systemic rebalance underway.\u201d<\/p>\n

#Oil #bosses #warn #prices #soar #weeks #inventories #levels<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The two biggest U.S. oil companies joined the growing chorus of voices sounding the alarm…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[3245,13487,376,5468,303,1146,420,1147,1391,2337],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}