Goldman Sachs sees Gulf oil exports normalizing by late August 2026

Goldman Sachs is now telling clients to expect Gulf oil exports to stay abnormal until late August 2026, a longer disruption than the bank’s earlier end-June call and a clear signal that the Strait of Hormuz remains a live issue for trading floors. For Goldman employees, that means more than a macro view: it points to heavier activity on energy desks, more advisory work for clients trying to hedge fuel costs, and more pressure on teams that have to keep commodity, macro and geopolitical views aligned.

The bank’s April 26 note, led by commodity analysts including Daan Struyven, had already turned sharply more bullish on prices. Goldman raised its Q4 2026 Brent forecast to $90 a barrel from $80 and its WTI forecast to $83 from $75, citing lower Persian Gulf production and extreme inventory draws. At the time, Goldman estimated that 14.5 million barrels per day of Middle East crude production losses were helping drive global inventories to draw at a record 11 million to 12 million barrels per day in April, and said the market could swing from a 1.8 million barrels per day surplus in 2025 to a 9.6 million barrels per day deficit in the second quarter of 2026.

That is the kind of backdrop that ripples through Goldman internally. When the bank says about one-fifth of global oil and LNG supply normally flows through the Strait of Hormuz, it explains why energy traders, economists and geopolitical strategists end up on the same call. A longer-than-expected outage keeps client questions coming: refiners want to know whether feedstock costs will spike, producers want to know if export bottlenecks will last, and institutional investors want a clearer read on whether crude can stay elevated into the bonus-setting months.

Goldman later said strong crude exports outside the Gulf and subdued demand from China were offsetting about 45% of the hit to Persian Gulf crude and condensate exports, though there was no net offset to refined-products export declines. That split matters for coverage teams because it means the pain is not uniform across barrels, and product traders may face a different tape from crude desks. It also means more cross-desk coordination as clients ask how flows from the Americas, Chinese demand weakness and Hormuz transit risk interact.

The bank then cut its 2027 average Brent forecast to $80 a barrel on June 12, citing stronger supply growth and persistent demand weakness, while warning that prices could still swing sharply depending on geopolitical developments. For Goldman, the message is not just that oil can move. It is that the work does too, with more volatile pricing, more urgent client coverage and more scrutiny on the desks that live closest to the disruption.