JPMorgan Predicts Year-Long Return to $75 Brent Amid Unresolved Strait of Hormuz Tensions

On 's The China Show, JPMorgan’s Asia Energy & Chemicals Research Head Parsley Ong presented the bank’s mapped oil‑price trajectories, explicitly noting that despite the persistence of volatility in the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, the firm anticipates a gradual ascent of Brent crude back to the $75‑per‑barrel threshold over the course of the next twelve months, a forecast that implicitly assumes a steadier geopolitical backdrop than currently evident.

In outlining a series of forward‑looking scenarios, Ong described a baseline path predicated on modest de‑escalation, a more aggressive recovery contingent upon a rapid normalization of shipping flows, and a downside case that would materialise only should the Hormuz impasse intensify, yet each variant was ultimately anchored to the overarching expectation that market forces would nevertheless conspire to restore the $75 level within the stipulated horizon, thereby foregrounding the institution’s confidence in its proprietary modelling apparatus despite the evident uncertainty.

The episode subtly exposes the institutional tendency of large financial houses to furnish precise price targets even as they acknowledge unresolved geopolitical tensions, a pattern that raises questions about the extent to which scenario analysis can substitute for concrete diplomatic progress, especially when the underlying risk of a chokepoint disruption remains largely unmitigated and the predictive framework appears to lean heavily on optimistic assumptions about market resilience.

Viewed in a broader context, this forecast exemplifies a recurring proclivity among major banks to project definitive market outcomes in environments characterised by high systemic risk, thereby creating an ostensible veneer of control that may obscure the structural fragilities inherent in reliance on a single maritime corridor, a dynamic that, while couched in analytical rigor, ultimately underscores the limited agency of financial prognosticators in the face of entrenched geopolitical complexities.

Published: April 20, 2026