With the U.S.-Iran war showing no sign of ending, oil traders and policymakers are grappling with a critical question: are global oil stocks enough to offset what could become the biggest supply disruption on record?
The answer is far from clear, depending not only on how much oil remains in storage, but also on how much of it can actually be released.
Disruption doesn't get any easier
How long reserves would last can only be ascertained by figuring out the size of the current disruption.
The head of Saudi Aramco believes the world has lost 2.6 billion barrels of oil since the start of the war, making it the largest supply disruption ever in cumulative terms apart from the 1979 Iranian revolution, according to Reuters calculations.
