Accelerating inventory drawdowns and logistical bottlenecks will continue to keep the oil market in short supply, the bank said in a research note.

The bank's revised scenario assumes that the pace of oil depletion will eventually force the Strait to open. The baseline scenario assumes shipping will resume on June 1 after a credible announcement confirmed by both parties, Reuters reports.

Prices are unlikely to normalize quickly, as OECD commercial inventories are approaching critically low operating levels, JPMorgan notes. Seasonal increases in summer demand, coupled with significant drawdowns in commercial inventories in March and April, and a likely continuation of this trend in May, should push OECD inventories to operationally critical levels by August—even if the Strait opens in June.

Earlier, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser warned that the ongoing supply shock to the energy market is the largest in world history, and that protracted disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz could delay the oil market's normalization until 2027.

"The longer the supply disruptions continue, even if it's just a few extra weeks, the longer it will take the oil market to rebalance and stabilize," he told analysts during the company's first-quarter earnings call. The bank estimates that the bottleneck will likely not be the strait itself, but tanker availability, refinery capacity expansion, and broader logistical constraints—all of which will keep the market in deficit until the second half of 2026.

JPMorgan now expects the average Brent price to be $96 per barrel in 2026, with quarterly averages of $103 in the second quarter, $104 in the third, and $98 in the fourth.

Looking ahead to 2027, JPMorgan expects Gulf producers to ramp up production to its maximum after the strait opens, seeking to recoup lost revenue. High prices should also encourage other producers to operate at full capacity, leading to a significant oversupply in the market beginning in September 2026.