Oil prices erase all war premiums in 11 days, with Brent falling below pre-war levels; however, inventory shortages may trigger a rebound.

BlockBeats reported that on June 26, international oil prices quickly fell back to pre-conflict levels between the US and Iran, with the entire conflict-driven gain erased in just 11 days, surprising the market. On Thursday, Brent crude once fell to $72.06, breaking below the pre-war last trading day’s closing price of $72.48, and has dropped over 39% from the March high of $118.35; WTI crude closed at $71.92, down about 36% from its high.

This round of decline has been much faster than expected. Previously, industry consensus was that clearing mines in the strait would take time and Gulf production recovery would take several months, but reality progressed significantly faster. JPMorgan analysts pointed out that the market has rebalanced through a "remarkably different combination of demand loss and inventory drawdown," far from the initial assumptions.

However, such a quick easing may not be stable. S&P Global data showed that on Wednesday, 78 oil tankers passed through the Strait of Hormuz, setting a new high since the conflict, but this still only amounted to 57% of pre-conflict levels, with a large portion being previously trapped shipping capacity departing together.

The head of commodities strategy at TD Securities warned that the market may be overestimating the speed of supply and inventory recovery. Inventory pressure has become a key variable. US Cushing inventories fell to 19 million barrels last week, about 1 million barrels below the level needed to keep the system stable; TD Securities expects that the world may need to draw an additional 600 million barrels from inventories by October, and once inventories fall below the critical threshold, oil prices could quickly rebound.

Regarding the outlook, Mizuho Securities analysts believe the market is now in an "oversold" state and predict oil prices could rebound to the $80 range in the coming weeks. Full recovery of production in countries such as Iraq and Kuwait is expected only by this fall, which could lead to another shift in the supply and demand picture by then.