Quantifying The Total Oil Supply Shock: 16MMB/d Today, 10MMb/d In April

In her latest note (available to pro subs), JPMorgan's head of commodity strategy Natasha Kaneva, writes that modeling unprecedented events - especially a war involving Iran and the Strait of Hormuz - sits at the edge of what traditional frameworks can handle.

By definition, she writes, there is no clean historical analog that fully captures the scale, geography, or strategic complexity of such a disruption. The biggest uncertainty is time: the US and Israel have offered mixed signals on the conflict’s possible duration, and, crucially, Iran, which also influences the timeline, appears to believe that time is working in its favor. Just as important, an end to hostilities would not necessarily mean the Strait fully reopens for normal commerce. As a result, the duration of the conflict - and thus the persistence of supply losses - cannot be forecast with precision.