Following the largest geopolitical oil supply disruption on record, JSV Global’s founder argues that fuel budgeting built on single-point forecasts is now a structural liability for shippers, fleets, and energy buyers
CLARK, N.J., Aug. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Twelve months ago, the consensus on global fuel prices was uniformly bearish. The World Bank projected a six-year low in commodity prices. Major banks penciled in a “rangebound” year for crude in the high-50stolow –60s a barrel. Retail gasoline was expected to stay comfortably under $3 a gallon.
None of it held.
Beginning in late February, military action affecting Iran triggered what energy researchers have described as the largest geopolitical oil supply disruption in history — two to three times larger in scale than the shocks of 1973 or 1990. The Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply normally moves, was effectively closed to shipping. Global oil supply fell by more than 10 million barrels a day in March alone, the largest single-month disruption on record. WTI crude surged nearly 98% from where it started the year, touching a 46-month high above $112 a barrel by the second quarter.
For Jason Venturelli, founder and CEO of JSV Global, the events of 2026 have validated a warning he has been issuing to clients and industry peers for years: the era of forecasting fuel costs off a single expected number is over.
“What happened this year wasn’t a black swan — it was a reminder of how thin the margin for error has always been,” said Venturelli. “A fifth of the world’s oil moves through one strait. When that strait is disrupted, the ripple isn’t linear, it’s exponential. We saw jet fuel crack spreads spike to more than four times their historical norm in a matter of weeks. We saw VLSFO prices double and cross $1,000 a tonne. Any organization that built its 2026 budget on a single crude number was already behind before the year started.”
A Year Defined by Chokepoints, Not Fundamentals
The scale of the disruption has been unusual not just in magnitude but in duration. A tentative U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding in June briefly pulled Brent crude back toward the high-$70s, offering a short window of relief. But by late July, renewed attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz — compounded by a new blockade threat against Saudi oil exports through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — pushed Brent back up to roughly $105 a barrel. As of the most recent outlook from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, disruptions through Hormuz are expected to persist through August, with full normalization not anticipated until early 2027.
Refined products have, in several respects, been hit even harder than crude itself. Diesel and jet fuel — products with limited flexibility to source outside the Middle East — have borne a disproportionate share of the shock. Jet fuel prices nearly tripled at one point after Middle Eastern export capacity was knocked offline, and IATA now projects full-year 2026 jet fuel prices will average around $152 a barrel, roughly 70% above 2025 levels, pushing global airline fuel costs toward $350 billion and cutting industry profitability nearly in half.
“This is the part that gets lost in the crude oil headlines,” Venturelli noted. “Diesel and jet fuel are where the real operational pain lands — for airlines, for freight, for anyone running a fleet. The crack spread on jet fuel in Northwest Europe spiked past $121 a barrel this spring. That’s not a rounding error in a budget. That’s a business model under pressure.”
The Fraud Risk Hiding Inside the Volatility
Venturelli is also using JSV Global’s platform to raise a less-discussed consequence of this year’s price swings: a marked increase in commodity trading fraud targeting buyers desperate to lock in fuel below market rates.
“Every time volatility spikes, so does fraud,” Venturelli said. “We’ve watched a resurgence of unsolicited cargo offers — EN590 diesel, heavy fuel oil bundled with jet fuel — quoted at prices that make no sense against the Platts benchmark, paired with requests for upfront fees or exotic payment instruments. These are not new scams, but this environment is giving them oxygen. Real fuel moves through established refiners, brokers, and verified banking channels. If a cargo offer sounds too good to be true against a backdrop like this one, it is.”
Looking Toward 2027 — Cautiously
Most analysts, including the EIA, still expect eventual relief once Gulf production and shipping return to normal operating conditions, with prices projected to ease toward the $69 range in 2027 as inventories rebuild. But Venturelli cautions against reading that as a signal to relax.
“The long-term outlook pointing toward relief is doing a lot of work in that sentence,” he said. “We are still hostage to a narrow set of chokepoints and a peace process that has already proven fragile once. The organizations that will come through this well aren’t the ones betting on a number — they’re the ones building in hedges, buffer, and real-time geopolitical awareness as a standing discipline, not a reaction to the last headline.”
About JSV Global
JSV Global, led by founder and CEO Jason Venturelli, works at the intersection of commodity markets, risk strategy, and operational planning, helping organizations navigate volatility in energy and fuel markets. The firm’s guidance draws on real-time market analysis and a focus on structural resilience over point-in-time forecasting.
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