After seven months of Middle East conflict, global crude and refined product inventories have fallen to extremely low levels, and even if the Strait of Hormuz fully resumes shipping, replenishing the stockpiles that were heavily drawn down could take as long as two years, warned Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser.

Speaking at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London, Nasser said cumulative lost oil supply from the Middle East since the conflict began has approached 3 billion barrels, roughly half the volume of crude and refined products that would normally have transited the Strait of Hormuz over the same period. To fill that gap, more than 1 billion barrels of oil have been released from various inventories worldwide.

Governments had previously released more than 300 million barrels from strategic reserves and agreed last Friday to release additional reserves, but commercial inventories have so far borne the brunt of the buffering role. That is also the part that worries Nasser most.

By his estimate, global commercial inventories still nominally hold about 6 billion barrels, but most of that cannot be quickly and practically brought to market when needed. This means that after strategic reserves have been heavily tapped, oil companies' own inventories have effectively become one of the last important buffers for the market.

Nasser said the global energy system is now clearly under strain, and with almost no more backup tools available, the supply system's margin to absorb further shocks has become very limited.

The issue is not just how much oil remains underground, but whether that crude and refined product can be delivered to where it is needed in time. Although Middle East crude exports briefly recovered in September and exceeded pre-war levels, the Strait of Hormuz still faces persistent security risks.

Shipping data show that Middle East crude exports reached a seven-day moving average of 18.3 million barrels per day by late September, but recent attacks on commercial vessels have increased markedly, and tanker insurance, transportation, and route arrangements remain severely disrupted.

This means that recovering supply flows does not equal a full recovery of the entire oil system. Over the past few months, Gulf states have had to rely more on alternative pipelines and longer transportation routes, tanker freight and insurance costs have risen sharply, and bottlenecks have also appeared in refining.

Even as more crude flows back through the Strait of Hormuz, logistics efficiency remains clearly below pre-war levels.

Nasser therefore believes that a true recovery needs to be divided into two phases: first, the Strait of Hormuz must fully resume operations and market confidence must be re-established; only then can the large volumes of commercial and strategic inventories that were drawn down begin to be replenished. The second phase may be even longer.

Inventory rebuilding cannot be achieved simply by increasing production. Oil-producing countries need to meet normal global consumption while also setting aside additional supply to replenish reserves; as long as the market remains in a high-demand state or the transportation system is constrained, the surplus crude available for restocking will be very limited.

Therefore, even after the most severe supply disruptions end, the inventory gap created over the past seven months will not disappear quickly. Recent Middle East export data already reflect this contradiction: actual crude flows are improving, but global inventories remain at low levels after continuous depletion, and the transportation and refining systems have not fully recovered.

This is what makes Nasser's remarks truly noteworthy. The biggest vulnerability in the current oil market is no longer just whether daily supply is short, but that the global inventory buffer used to absorb the next supply shock has been significantly weakened.

If new oil fields, pipelines, refineries, or tankers are attacked again, the market's ability to quickly smooth the shock by releasing inventories will be markedly weaker than it was at the start of the war.

In other words, even if Middle East supply begins to recover, the global oil market is still far from returning to normal. What was consumed over the past seven months was not just billions of barrels of oil supply, but also the safety cushion originally meant to deal with emergencies, and rebuilding that buffer may take years rather than months.