Strait of Hormuz reopening may arrive too late to ease oil prices

The Strait of Hormuz has been declared reopened after a memorandum of understanding was signed, but restoring real oil flows could take months due to demining, repositioning empty tankers, restarting production and completing long-haul shipments. Global crude inventories have already fallen by 190 million barrels, while the Cushing, Oklahoma hub is nearing its operational stress level and storage sites worldwide are close to critical thresholds. The International Energy Agency estimates it would take about a year to replace 1.15 billion barrels of lost oil even with an additional 5 million barrels of production, and analysts warn the physical supply gap could keep prices rising through the summer despite market optimism.