Chevron CEO Mike Wirth at the S&P Global Conference “CERAWeek” held in Houston, Texas on March 23, 2026.
Carter Smith | Bloomberg | Getty Images
HOUSTON — Crude oil futures markets are not fully pricing in the scale of the supply disruption caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. chevron CEO Mike Wirth said Monday.
“There are very real, physical signs of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz that are reverberating around the world and through the system, but I don’t think it’s fully factored into the oil futures curve,” Wirth said at S&P Global’s CERAWeek conference here.
Oil prices fell more than 10% on Monday after President Donald Trump told CNBC that he was “very eager to make a deal with Iran.” President Trump postponed attacks on Iranian power plants for five days after talks with Iran that he said were productive.
The contract for U.S. crude oil for May delivery ended at $88.13 per barrel. The international standard Brent price settled at $99.94 per barrel.
The U.S. oil contract for August delivery is trading around $81 a barrel, suggesting the market believes the turmoil will ease in the coming weeks and months.
But the market is trading on “poor information” and “perceptions,” Worth said. He said physical supplies of crude oil are tighter than futures contracts suggest.
“There’s a lot of oil and gas that isn’t on the market right now,” Chevron’s CEO said. “There is a real difference in terms of physical supply between this case and the previous incident.”
Wirth said even if the Strait reopens, it will take time to rebuild inventories. Before the war began, about 20% of the world’s oil supply flowed through the narrow sea route linking the Persian Gulf to world markets. Iranian attacks on commercial shipping have sharply reduced oil tanker traffic.
Gulf Arab producers are cutting back on production because they cannot export through the strait. Iranian missile and drone attacks are also damaging energy infrastructure in the Middle East. Wirth said some governments have also imposed policies to keep stocks domestic and reduce exports.
“How quickly production can actually come back online is an uncertainty that we have to deal with as we move forward,” Wirth said. “It’s going to take some time to get out of this situation.”
