The U.S.-Iran war has delivered what Goldman Sachs now sees as the largest oil supply shock on record.
Persian Gulf exports, as tracked by vessel count data, have fallen to roughly 3% of normal levels at the Strait of Hormuz — a disruption that dwarfs even the 1973 OPEC embargo and the 1990 Gulf War in terms of the immediate hit to flows.
Goldman’s commodity research team, led by analyst Daan Struyven, upgraded its Brent crude price forecast on Wednesday, citing a longer assumed disruption and a more complex global policy response than their initial models projected.
“Our commodity strategists now expect Brent to average $98 in March and April—up 40% from the 2025 average— before falling back to $71 by 2026 Q4,” Goldman Sachs said.
On Thursday morning, front-month futures on the West Texas Intermediate light crude – as tracked by the United States Oil Fund (NYSE:USO) – traded 6% higher near $95 a barrel. That’s after the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced an emergency release of 400 million barrels from crude reserves – the largest in history.
The Largest Oil Supply Shock on Record
Goldman’s analysis shows the current hit to Persian Gulf exports at 16.2 mb/d on a four-day moving average basis, a figure the bank describes as the largest supply shock on record, exceeding the production losses seen during the 1973 …
