Goldman Sachs has warned that oil prices could stay above the $100 a barrel mark for the rest of 2026 if the Strait of Hormuz stays shut for another month.
In a note published on Thursday, the investment bank said any truce between Iran and the United States would be fragile, and that four more weeks of closure would make a return to lower oil prices highly unlikely.
“We continue to see the risks to our price forecast as skewed to the upside,” Goldman strategists wrote, adding: “The situation remains fluid.”
The vital shipping lane – through which a fifth of global seaborne oil transited before the outbreak of the regional conflict – has been shut to almost all exports for more than a month, in a situation energy analysts have branded one of “the most severe supply shocks” in modern history.
Iran had agreed to reopen the Strait to traffic as part of a two-week ceasefire agreed by Tehran and Washington on Tuesday. But hours after the temporary truce was signed, Iran barred tankers from passing through the channel, blaming Israel for breaking the strike.
The US ally unleashed its largest strike on Lebanon since the war’s onset shortly after the pact was agreed, claiming that the country, home to Iranian military proxy Hezbollah, was not included in the deal’s terms.
Higher oil prices to dent economic growth
The Strait’s closure and Goldman’s forecast will exacerbate fears that the energy crisis unfolding in the Middle East is poised to permanently scar the global economy. In an interview earlier this week, International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva warned that even with a sudden deescalation, “all roads” lead to higher oil prices and slower economic growth.
The remarks echoed concerns voiced by SP Angel’s David Mirzai, who told City AM that the energy supply shortage was likely to cause “very real economic hardship” regardless of whether the strait was reopened permanently in the near future.
Currently, Goldman’s base-case outlook is for flows through the shipping lane to get underway in earnest this weekend, before rising to pre-war levels over the next month. Brent crude – the international benchmark – would fall to $82 a barrel in the third quarter under that scenario, before falling to $80 for the last three months of 2026.
On Thursday morning Brent’s spot price was $98, having fallen more than 13 per cent on the news of the ceasefire agreement. Before the war started on 28 February, the benchmark was trading at $72 a barrel, which in turn was considerably higher than the $60 a barrel at which oil prices were trading at for much of 2025.
In a social media post on Wednesday night, Donald Trump said opening up the strait to shipping had been agreed a “long time ago”, and warned that the US would reengage militarily if Tehran did not comply with the agreement in full.
