ING’s Warren Patterson revises the base case for global Energy markets, abandoning an earlier assumption of a quick two-week disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. The new scenarios extend severe disruption into late March or beyond, with only gradual normalisation through the second and third quarters.

Reworked scenarios extend disruption risk

"At the start of the war, in our base case we assumed a two-week full disruption to energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz and then a gradual recovery over the remainder of March, which would have led to near-normal flows by April. That was clearly too optimistic, with us now in the third week of the conflict and no signs of energy flows resuming. We have therefore had a hard rethink of our scenarios, along with our base case."

"In our new scenario 1, which is our base case, we assume that Strait of Hormuz flows remain cut off until the end of March, which corresponds with the view that intense combat between the US-Israel and Iran continues until the end of the month. This is followed by lower intensity strikes, along with more signs of diplomacy, which start to allow for a gradual recovery in energy flows in the second quarter."

"Over this time, upstream production, refineries and LNG facilities start to slowly ramp up as storage constraints start to ease. However, it would only be by the start of the third quarter that we see a return to near-normal flows. This is assuming that available pipeline capacity continues to be used for some oil to bypass the Strait of Hormuz."

"Our new scenario 2 is our most optimistic scenario, where we assume that energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz remain almost fully disrupted until the end of March and gradually improve in April. This would allow supply to be back to near normal by May."

"Our new scenario 3 is our more aggressive scenario, where the intensity of the war continues into April, followed by a lower-grade confrontation for the foreseeable future, while there are few signs of diplomacy. Continued attacks on vessels navigating the Strait of Hormuz mean energy flows remain disrupted for a prolonged period."

(This article was created with the help of an Artificial Intelligence tool and reviewed by an editor.)