Getting oil moving again through Hormuz is one thing — getting the Gulf energy system back again is another. While the recent ceasefire opens the door to transit the strait, the system behind it remains fragile, with strikes hitting refineries, storage, and fields across Gulf countries.

A sea-turned-storage could be a relief: There’s some 130 mn barrels of crude, 46 mn barrels of refined fuels, and 1.3 mn tons of LNG sitting idle on tankers across the Gulf. These volumes can move quickly once routes reopen.

Not that quick though: “It would likely take more than two weeks to clear the backlog even under normal conditions, [which is] too short to restore the level of confidence needed to fully unwind the embedded uncertainty premium — particularly for Arabian Gulf loading routes,” Daejin Lee, global head of research at Fertmax, told Reuters.

But clearing the backlog of cargoes is only half the equation — and moving ships out is easier than convincing them to come back in. Hundreds of vessels and shipowners are preparing to move, but transit protocols and key terms are still unclear. Charters remain cautious, with Maersk noting that “the ceasefire may create transit [windows], but it does not yet provide full maritime certainty and we need to understand all potential conditions attached.”

Crucially, without the confidence that tankers will be there to lift cargo, producers won’t rush to restart — they can’t afford to produce barrels they can’t move. National oil companies like Aramco may also be hesitant to restore output without clarity on the ceasefire conditions.

The GCC will now play a sequencing game: The first barrels back to market won’t come from fresh output but from crude and products already sitting in tanks in the Gulf. That buys time, but it’s finite, and masks the deeper issue that upstream and midstream systems are still impaired.

It will likely take some time

Wells don’t like being turned off: Idle wells lose pressure balance, take on water, and face corrosion risks — especially with hydrogen sulfide exposure. In Saudi and Iraq, where enhanced recovery techniques like gas and water injection are standard, restarting is recalibrating entire reservoir systems under stable conditions.

Refining will be the quiet bottleneck: Saudi’s Samref refinery has been running below capacity since a drone strike last month, with estimates suggesting full restoration could take up to a year, while the UAE also halted its Ruwais plant after a drone strike. That matters because refined products are where shortages hit harder.

Supply chain too: Turbines, compressors, and specialized equipment will be needed to repair the Gulf’s energy infrastructure. Several companies and service providers have evacuated staff from the region, stretching the time till those workers return and equipment is available.

The overarching risk: All of these recovery timelines are entirely dependent on the situation holding steady. “Kinetic action can easily resume if there is discord [regarding] any [aspect] of the 10-point plan proposed by Iran,” Harry Tchilinguirian, head of research at Onyx Capital Group, tells EnterpriseAM. If the conflict reignites — particularly if the US or Israel target Iranian power plants — Tchilinguirian warns the next wave of attacks will likely be far more aggressive, with Iran directly striking its neighbors’ energy infrastructure.

Qatar took the first step

Getting work started: Engineers and workers are already heading to Ras Laffan as improving security allows limited activity and maintenance ahead of a planned restart, with some output possibly returning in the coming days. Some operations have already begun to come back online, “with two LNG trains restarted and a third in progress,” Mehdy Touil, who spent more than a decade at Ras Laffan and is now the lead LNG specialist at Calypso Commodities, tells us, adding that staff never left the site.

IN CONTEXT- Some 17% of LNG capacity has been taken offline at Qatar’s Ras Laffan facility, forcing a shutdown of liquefaction early in the conflict. Repairs to LNG infrastructure are slow by design — restarting even the intact trains requires a multi-step process of reopening offshore wells, restoring utilities, and restocking refrigerants that cool the gas, Touil told the New York Times. QatarEnergy previously signaled that restoring full capacity could take up to five years.

What this means

Even in the best-case scenario, this is a staggered recovery. Some wells could return in days or weeks if damage is limited and security holds. But full system normalization — across production, processing, and export — is a months-long process at minimum, and years-long where infrastructure has taken a real hit.

REMEMBER- The potential bill for repairing energy infrastructure across the Gulf from war damage stands at USD 25 bn, with engineering and construction taking the biggest share, followed by equipment and materials

What’s next: Watch tanker traffic through Hormuz for confidence, and refinery utilization rates for real supply recovery.

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