Energy Markets Recovery Will Take Months, Kremlin Envoy Says

(MENAFN) Global energy markets face a prolonged recovery lasting months — not weeks — even if the recently announced U.S.-Iran ceasefire holds and the Strait of Hormuz stays open, Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev has warned, casting a shadow over cautious optimism that followed President Donald Trump's truce announcement.

Dmitriev, who serves as Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, stated bluntly that energy markets "will take months to normalize even if the Strait of Hormuz remains open" — a sobering assessment that arrived even as oil prices dipped on news of the ceasefire.

The warning echoed a Bloomberg report in which senior Asian airline executives cautioned that jet fuel prices would still need "many, many more months" to stabilize. International Air Transport Association (IATA) Director General Willie Walsh reinforced that view, saying that if the Strait of Hormuz "were to reopen and remain open, it will still take a period of months to get back to where supply needs to be, given the disruption to the refining capacity in the Middle East."

The scale of damage to energy infrastructure across the region has been immense. Multiple refineries have been destroyed since hostilities began, pushing jet fuel prices to more than double their pre-war levels. Thai Airways CEO Chai Eamsiri did not hold back in characterizing the moment, calling the current shock the worst in his near-four-decade career.

The crisis at sea is equally dire. More than 800 vessels remain stranded inside the Persian Gulf following the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the wake of U.S. and Israeli strikes in late February. Traders and shipowners are now watching closely to see which vessels will begin moving through the strait under the fragile truce, according to media. An International Maritime Organization count from late March put the number of seafarers trapped aboard those vessels at approximately 20,000 — many facing dwindling provisions, physical exhaustion, and acute psychological strain.

The broader commodity picture offers little comfort. A Newsmax report published just before the ceasefire was announced warned of a looming global commodity shock, cautioning that the full extent of the disruption caused by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran had yet to fully materialize — and that the world could soon confront sudden and severe shortages cascading from energy into fertilizers, food production, and consumer goods.

Trump's ceasefire deal — framed as "double-sided" — was struck on the basis of Tehran's 10-point proposal and includes provisions that would see Iran retain control over the Strait of Hormuz. Whether the agreement survives the coming weeks of negotiations remains to be seen, but even optimistic scenarios, experts warn, will not spare global markets from a prolonged period of turbulence.

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