Oil parked above $110 a barrel as IEA warns energy markets won’t return to normal next year

Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA/AP

Global energy markets are more than a year away from returning to normal and remain highly vulnerable to “overlapping crises” in the Middle East, the head of the International Energy Agency has warned.

His comments come as oil prices have been marching upwards in recent weeks. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, is trading above $111 a barrel. If it stays there, it could settle at its highest level since May.

“I don’t see any credible pathway that 2027 will be a year of normalisation,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol told an industry gathering in London Tuesday. The Strait of Hormuz has been closed once, “it can be closed again,” he said.

The waterway, which transported a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supply before the war, has become heavily contested with attacks on ships ramping up in recent weeks .

“I’m very worried that there will be some overlapping crises in the Middle East … and it may further escalate the situation, which will have serious implications for energy markets,” Birol told the Financial Times Energy Transition Summit.

Higher oil prices reflect concerns that the US-Iran conflict could escalate. Iran has signalled that it is preparing for another round of war , issuing public threats against Washington in an apparent bid to deter President Donald Trump from reigniting the current stalemated conflict.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia has faced deadly attacks from Iran-backed Houthi militants in recent weeks, disrupting oil shipments and prompting the kingdom to call off its flagship investor conference, planned for later this month, just a week before it was due to take place.

Mohammed Benmansour/Reuters

Saudi Arabia cancels next week’s ‘Davos in the Desert’ conference after series of Houthi attacks

“I have many, many concerns about the situation,” Birol said at the Financial Times Energy Transition Summit.

He cautioned that assessing the depth of the current energy crisis by looking only at crude prices – which have not gone as high as $200 a barrel, as some analysts had predicted at the start of the war – was “myopic.”

“We don’t use crude oil, we use products,” he noted, pointing to the fact that diesel prices have doubled from levels before the war, due largely to the Iran war but also in part to attacks on refineries in Russia.

“We are entering a season where diesel demand typically goes up” and many large refineries have planned maintenance work, he said. “We are on thin ice and I am very worried about this.”

He said that IEA member countries, which total 32, “will not hesitate to look into the option of releasing further stocks” of oil reserves should they be needed.

IEA members agreed a historic release of emergency reserves in March, with 80% of those 400 million barrels already issued to the market and 20% still to be released. Member countries still have about 1.6 billion barrels “in pocket,” noted Birol. “We are keeping it for the rainy days.”

阿米尔侯赛因·霍尔古伊/ISNA/美联社

国际能源署署长警告称，全球能源市场距离恢复正常至少还有一年多的时间，并且仍然极易受到中东“叠加危机”的影响。

他发表这番言论之际，油价已连续数周上涨。全球原油基准布伦特原油价格目前交易于每桶111美元以上。如果价格维持在当前水平，则可能达到5月份以来的最高点。

国际能源署执行主任法提赫·比罗尔周二在伦敦的一次行业会议上表示：“我不认为2027年会是恢复正常的一年。” 他说，霍尔木兹海峡曾经关闭过一次，“它可能会再次关闭”。

战前，这条水道运输着世界五分之一的石油和天然气供应，但近几周来，随着对船只的袭击事件不断增加，这条水道已成为争夺激烈的战场。

“我非常担心中东地区会出现一些相互交织的危机……这可能会进一步加剧局势，对能源市场产生严重影响，”比罗尔在《金融时报》能源转型峰会上表示。

油价上涨反映出人们对美伊冲突可能升级的担忧。伊朗已发出信号，表明其正在为新一轮战争做准备，并公开威胁华盛顿，显然是为了阻止特朗普总统重新点燃目前陷入僵局的冲突。

与此同时，沙特阿拉伯近几周来遭受了伊朗支持的胡塞武装分子的致命袭击，导致石油运输中断，并迫使沙特王国在原定于本月晚些时候举行的旗舰投资者大会开幕前一周取消了会议。

穆罕默德·本曼苏尔/路透社

沙特阿拉伯在胡塞武装发动一系列袭击后取消了下周的“沙漠达沃斯”论坛。

“我对这种情况有很多很多担忧，”比罗尔在《金融时报》能源转型峰会上表示。

他警告说，仅仅通过观察原油价格来评估当前能源危机的严重程度是“短视的”，因为原油价格并没有像一些分析师在战争开始时预测的那样飙升至每桶 200 美元。

“我们不使用原油，我们使用成品油，”他指出，柴油价格已经比战前水平翻了一番，这主要是由于伊朗战争，但也部分是由于俄罗斯炼油厂遭到袭击。

他说：“我们即将进入柴油需求通常会上升的季节”，而且许多大型炼油厂都计划进行维护工作。“我们现在如履薄冰，我对此非常担忧。”

他表示，国际能源署的32个成员国“将毫不犹豫地考虑在必要时释放更多石油储备”。

国际能源署成员国在3月份达成了一项历史性的紧急储备释放协议，其中4亿桶石油储备中的80%已经投放市场，剩余20%尚未释放。比罗尔指出，成员国目前仍有约16亿桶石油储备“留存”。“我们是为了应对不时之需而储备的。”