Analysis: What happens when the war between the US and Iran really ends?

US President Donald Trump said on Saturday (23) that peace with Iran is close and that the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened.

We'll see. Trump became the president who called for peace. After repeated false promises in the last three months, the market began to ignore his speech. Instead, it awaits concrete signs of a deal with Iran.

Iran has been intransigent on the issue of completely reopening the strait - its main weapon of pressure during a war in which it was militarily defeated. But Iran has used speedboats, mines and sophisticated drones to block the strait to oil tankers, depriving the global economy of a fifth of its oil.

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But if this really is the end of the war and the strait is about to be reopened, what happens next?

When will prices return to pre-war levels? Not so soon. Almost certainly not this year. Maybe never.

What happens next?
Once the strait is fully reopened, a logistical nightmare is about to unfold.

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First step
Unblock the bottlenecks in the strait. This will take a long time, as oil tankers move almost as fast as riding a bicycle.

First, the roughly 166 oil tankers stuck in the Persian Gulf need to leave, carrying about 170 million barrels of oil, according to Matt Smith, chief oil analyst at Kpler. This will open the way for empty tankers to enter the strait, load up and leave.

Ships in the Strait of Hormuz on May 18, 2026 - Reuters
The return to full tanker transit capacity could take up to three months, according to Victoria Grabenwöger, senior oil analyst at Kpler.

Second step
Reduce stocks. Empty ships will first take oil from warehouses that have been filled - because producers have nowhere to store it.

The good news: Refineries were pragmatic about storage and never completely filled their inventories. This should reduce some of the time needed to restart the pumps. However, higher than normal inventories will still delay the resumption of oil production to full capacity.

Third step
Restart production. Middle Eastern oil wells were largely shut down during the war. Turning on production is not like flipping a switch. It's a complex engineering challenge involving serious physics and work that can take several weeks.

Production will need to restart - slowly - to ensure that crude oil reservoirs do not collapse, requiring additional drilling and substantial repairs. The water and gas injected into the wells need to be rebalanced, which is a delicate task.

Because the wells in the region are large and close together, resuming production will require significant coordination between companies and countries to ensure that the pressure of injected water and gas remains consistent across multiple wells.

Trump says blockade on Iran will continue until agreement is signed | NOW CNN

Fourth step
Make repairs. Several refineries, natural gas producers and some oil producers were damaged during the war. Some repairs to damaged critical infrastructure could take years to complete, oil companies said.

View of a portion of phase 19 of the South Pars gas field in Assalooyeh, on the Persian Gulf coast of Iran, 1,400 km (870 miles) south of Tehran, on August 23, 2016. - Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images
There is a lot of oil to restore: production of 12 million barrels per day of crude oil and 3 million barrels of refined oil products has been halted across the Middle East - particularly in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, according to Kpler. It's not an easy task.

The big questions
All of this presupposes the end of the war and the absence of new interruptions in the strait.

And we all know what happens when you assume.

The last few months have been marked by false promises of peace, which led operators to keep oil prices high. On April 18, Iran agreed to reopen the strait, but hours later, it determined that the United States and Israel had violated their side of the agreement and once again began firing at ships trying to pass.

Oil traders will monitor developments over the coming weeks and months to see if Iran is truly ready to give up the strait.

If so, will Iran stop charging tolls for passing ships? Will the government maintain the blockade on Iranian oil or give in to Iran's demand that the blockade be lifted as a precondition for peace?

In addition, shipping companies will need to feel safe sending their ships through the strait. The last time the strait was reopened (briefly), ships rushed to get out, only to quickly return when informed that the crossing had become unsafe.

Insurers have increased marine insurance prices by thousands of percentage points and may be unwilling to offer affordable coverage while the situation remains precarious.

Iran has threatened to mine the strait and previously directed ships to sail along a designated route - and only if they were given permission to pass through. Ships may not be willing to take this risk.

What will happen to oil and gas prices?
Investors have repeatedly tried to test a new floor for crude oil, but it has not stabilized below $94 per barrel since mid-March. Brent crude futures closed at just over $100 per barrel on Friday, and if investors are optimistic about peace progress, they could look to test the lower limits when trading resumes on Monday night.

Analysts at JPMorgan, who expect the strait to open in early June, predict oil will average $97 per barrel for the remainder of the year. Historically, Brent needs to be in the $60 range for gasoline to cost $3 per gallon, noted Michael Green, chief strategist at Simplify Asset Management. The futures market currently does not predict this to happen before 2032.

The longer this peace lasts and the more evidence that production is resuming, the lower oil prices could fall.

But that's a lot of ifs.

Iran has already questioned Trump's statement that ships will be able to transit freely through the strait again.

"Although Iran has agreed to allow the number of passing vessels to return to pre-war levels, this in no way means 'free passage' as it existed before the war," Iran's semi-official state news agency Fars reported.

We'll see.

Why is the Strait of Hormuz so important to the world economy?

Source: CNN