Oil prices at $95 a barrel is cheap and could climb to $140 a barrel by the end of February 2027 and potentially touch $500 by 2030, as the supply disruption caused by the Iran war collides with an increasingly difficult production recovery, according to Currency Research Associates, a leading boutique firm specialising in currency strategy.
In its October 15 edition of Review of Emerging Trends, titled “Oil After Iran”, the research firm estimates that 1.675 billion barrels of oil were not delivered over a 26-week period following the outbreak of the war. This represents an average supply shortfall of 9.2 million barrels per day (bpd), equivalent to almost 9% of the 105 million bpd of global consumption recorded in 2025.
The firm argues that the missing barrels have been replaced by withdrawals from stockpiles, but that this has merely deferred the demand. Once countries begin replenishing depleted reserves, the resulting restocking requirement could add significantly to the call on global oil supplies.
According to the note, replacing the 1.675 billion barrels over one year would require an additional 4.6 million bpd of supply. Spread over two years, the requirement would be 2.3 million bpd, and over three years, around 1.5 million bpd.
This additional demand comes at a time when there is limited scope for a rapid recovery in global production, the firm says. It argues that five countries account for half of the world's oil production, while production has already peaked in Saudi Arabia and Russia in 2018 and is now in permanent decline. Peak oil is also emerging in the US, it says. China, meanwhile, consumes more oil than it produces and imports twice its domestic output, while Iranian oil is off the market.