Saudi Aramco CEO says global oil inventories could take about 18 months to recover following supply disruptions

• Even if the Strait reopened today, replenishing depleted inventories would take up to 18 months at an average rate of 2.1 million barrels per day.

Comments from the Aramco chief carry weight on supply-side framing, given the company's role as the world's largest exporter and its visibility into Saudi spare capacity and customer nominations. The distinction worth drawing is between a disruption to flows and the resulting stock draw: episodes in which transit chokepoints have interrupted supply have tended to resolve in two stages, a prompt price response to the outage itself followed by a slower restocking phase that keeps commercial and strategic inventories below normal long after flows resume. An 18-month replenishment horizon implies a sustained call on spare capacity and elevated floating and onshore storage demand, conditions that in comparable episodes have kept the front of the crude curve backwardated relative to the tail. The figures here are the CEO's own estimates, and such projections from producer executives have historically served both an informational and a signalling function toward consumers and fellow producers. What follows in sequence is typically any revision to OPEC+ output policy, Saudi export allocation decisions, and whether official inventory data confirm the drawdown pace implied.