Reuters published a line on Thursday morning that deserves to outlast its news cycle: "The energy shock will make hoarding the new normal." [1] The sentence appeared in an analysis of sovereign petroleum stockpiling behavior since the Strait of Hormuz blockade began disrupting shipments in early March. It captures, in nine words, a structural shift that the oil market has not yet fully absorbed. Countries are no longer buying oil to consume it. They are buying oil to store it. The distinction changes everything about how the market prices crude for the rest of this year.

The hoarding pattern is visible in the data. China increased its strategic petroleum reserve drawdown authorization in March, then reversed course and began refilling from non-Gulf sources, primarily Russian Urals crude and West African grades. [2] India, which imports roughly 85 percent of its oil, fast-tracked a deal with the UAE for pre-positioned emergency stocks at the Padur strategic reserve facility in Karnataka. Japan activated its IEA-coordinated release mechanism for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster, then simultaneously increased purchases from Alaska's North Slope -- releasing stocks to the domestic market while rebuilding them from non-disrupted sources.

As this paper reported on April 2, Brent crude surged to $106 after the president's prime-time address. It has not come down. WTI opened Thursday at $102.40, its highest sustained level since 2022. Markets.com's April forecast projected WTI remaining above $95 through the second quarter, barring a ceasefire. [3] The language of the forecast was notable: "above $95" was described not as a spike but as a "base case." The war premium is no longer a premium. It is the floor.

Goldman Sachs reiterated its warning, first issued in mid-March, that a sustained Hormuz disruption could push Brent to $150 per barrel. [4] The bank's commodity desk described the scenario as "tail risk that is no longer in the tail." BlackRock's global fixed income team published a note on Thursday warning that the energy price shock is now the primary driver of inflation expectations in both the U.S. and Europe, and that central banks face an impossible choice: raise rates to fight energy-driven inflation and risk tipping the economy into recession, or hold rates and watch inflation expectations become unanchored.

The mechanics of hoarding reinforce the price floor. When countries build stockpiles, they remove supply from the spot market, which tightens available barrels, which raises prices, which incentivizes further hoarding. The feedback loop is self-reinforcing. A barrel purchased for strategic reserve is a barrel that cannot be refined and consumed. Multiply that across every oil-importing nation simultaneously acting on the same fear -- that the strait stays disrupted, that the war extends, that the next tanker does not arrive -- and the result is a market where $100 oil is not a war premium. It is rational behavior in an environment of genuine supply uncertainty.

The human cost of this repricing extends far beyond trading desks. Bangladesh is shortening its workday to save fuel. The Philippines has declared a 45-day reserve emergency. Cuba's grid collapsed. South Africa imposed fuel surcharges. Every dollar added to the price of crude is a dollar extracted from countries that can least afford it. The hoarding that protects wealthy nations' strategic reserves is the same force that depletes poor nations' commercial stocks.

Eric Nuttall, the Canadian energy portfolio manager whose Hormuz analysis has been widely cited on X, summarized the position: "Damage is literally and figuratively done. No way for oil prices to drop sharply in 2026, unless we have a massive demand shock." [5] A massive demand shock is another way of saying a recession. The oil market's new floor is priced at a level that makes the recession it would take to break it more likely with every passing week.

-- Hendrik Van Der Berg, Brussels