Vitol CEO: Middle East Flows of About 14M BPD Avert $200 Oil Scenario
Russell Hardy says regional crude and product exports are holding the market together as refining capacity stays short and freight costs swing wildly.
Tariq Benali Tariq Benali covers business and corporate news across the UAE and MENA for Anecdoted, tracking the deals, leadership moves and regulatory shifts behind the region's companies. tariq@anecdoted.com
Middle East crude exports have run at roughly 12 million barrels per day over the past seven to 10 days, with another 2 million bpd of refined products leaving the region, according to Russell Hardy, chief executive of the trading house Vitol. Those volumes are what stand between the market and a $200 per barrel price.
"Without it, you do have that $200 per barrel scenario, so it's pretty important that it continues," Hardy told the Energy Intelligence Forum in London on Tuesday.
Flows in the 10 million to 14 million bpd range are keeping supply and demand in balance as winter approaches, he said, with inventories in the West largely run down.
From crude to products to ships
The disruption that began this year started as a crude oil crisis, turned into a products crisis and is now a shipping crisis, Hardy said. Freight pricing has been "pretty parabolic," creating stress across the market. Shipment costs are so volatile that no one can predict them to within $2 to $4 per barrel.
China absorbed part of the shock in May and June by running its system on its own oil stocks. Elsewhere in Asia, developing countries had a harder time, lacking inventory buffers and tied closely to Middle East supply chains.
Refined product markets will stay tight through the winter, Hardy said, because refining capacity remains short worldwide — a consequence of damage to Russian infrastructure and five months of lost refining runs in the Middle East.
Saudi Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser told the forum on Monday that global oil stockpiles are "scarily thin" and could take two years to rebuild. Kuwait Petroleum Corporation CEO Nawaf Saud Al-Sabah put the missing refined products at about 6 million bpd. Nasser and Al-Sabah rank first and fourth on a 2026 ranking of the region's 100 chief executives.
The forum's 47th edition gathered energy executives, policymakers and investors in London on October 5 and 6.
Reserve release and diesel
On October 2, the Group of Seven agreed to release 100 million barrels of crude and diesel from strategic reserves through the International Energy Agency, after the US threatened an export ban. Europe will see some relief from the diesel portion, Hardy said, though volumes and sources are still unclear.
"We have a price effect and a very difficult market, but nobody's not had diesel at the pump in Europe," he said.
Governments are trying to weigh US President Donald Trump, the IEA, consumer needs and the strategic purpose of those stocks, he added. Brent crude futures traded near $98 per barrel on Tuesday, while European diesel futures carried a premium of about $70 per barrel over crude.
Chevron: thinner cushions
Mike Wirth, chief executive of Chevron, said the same day that buffers for oil and fuel are shrinking as the Middle East conflict enters its eighth month. "The energy system is more fragile today than earlier in the conflict," he said, adding that the floor under oil prices is climbing as supply cushions wear thin.
Brent futures sit near $100 per barrel, but the landed price of physical crude in Asia is closer to $150, Wirth said. He warned against export bans, saying that restricting supply "constrains supplies at a time when the world needs them." The US remains deeply tied to global energy markets, he added, and a diesel export ban may not deliver the benefits American consumers expect.
Equinor's UK test
Anders Opedal, chief executive of Norway's Equinor, said a failure to win approval for the Rosebank oil and Jackdaw gas projects would be a major blow to Adura, its UK North Sea joint venture with Shell. "Not approving Rosebank would be contradictory to energy security, to job creation," he said, warning that a rejection would make Equinor and other investors question whether the UK is still worth investing in.
Rosebank was approved in 2023 and Jackdaw in 2022, but both decisions were overturned after Greenpeace and Uplift challenged them in court over how downstream emissions were treated, forcing new applications in 2025. A decision on Jackdaw could arrive within days.
If approved, Jackdaw could produce this winter, since much of its infrastructure already stands. Rosebank could deliver first oil in the first half of 2027. Equinor and Shell rebranded their UK North Sea venture as Adura in 2025, and it is set to become the largest oil and gas producer in the UK North Sea.
