Shipping bottlenecks, deep cuts in refinery output and inventory draws that could take years to replace will keep global oil prices high beyond this year, industry executives say at a conference in London, Reuters reports.

“I think it is going to be bedlam for the bulk of the end of the year and maybe 2027,” Petronas CEO Tengku Muhammad Taufik says.

In his first conference address since the start of the Iran war, Amin Nasser, chief executive of the world’s biggest oil company, Saudi Aramco, tells the Energy Intelligence Forum in London it could take up to two years to refill global stockpiles drawn on as an emergency measure.

“Until [the Strait of] Hormuz fully re-opens and confidence returns, the crude reality is that pressure at both ends of the barrel will intensify. Even then, replenishing inventories while meeting demand could take up to two years,” he outlines.

“Both ends of the barrel” refers to unrefined crude and refined products, such as diesel and jet fuel.

He adds that 3 billion barrels have been lost since the start of the conflict, and 1bn barrels have been withdrawn from global inventories.