Global energy expert warns ‘absolute crisis’ could keep oil prices high into 2027

That’s the conclusion of a global energy expert who was speaking at an Australian super investment conference held in New York on Friday.

At the same event, an ex-White House press secretary under Donald Trump, now turned critic, said the Iran war was not going to the “plan” and there was a “less than one per cent chance” the conflict will end the way the US president wants.

But he will likely declare victory anyway.

Both were talking at the Australian Superannuation Investment Summit, which made stops in San Francisco and Washington DC, before concluding in New York on Friday.

Australians hold $4.5 trillion in super, one of the world’s largest pension capital pots, with $820 billion of that invested in the US to provide returns to retired Aussies.

It’s predicted that could increase to $2.2 trillion parked in the US – invested in toll roads and airports for instance – by 2035.

US President Donald Trump said pump prices would only rise for a short time and then fall. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP)

Australia’s huge super pot – and the willingness for that money to go stateside – is seen by Canberra as a key financial and diplomatic tool to curry favour with the White House.

“These Australian investments in the United States deliver tangible benefits: they create jobs and modernise infrastructure, and at the same time provide Australians with stable, long-term returns,” said outgoing Australian ambassador to the US and former PM Kevin Rudd.

But, inevitably, much of the discussion at the summit was about the US and Israel’s war with Iran.

A sign outside a fuel station in Melbourne on March 10, 2026 shows the soaring price of petrol. (Photo by William WEST / AFP)

‘Absolute crisis’

Mr Trump has repeatedly said the conflict could be short. On Wednesday, he said “You never like to say too ⁠early you won. We won”. He has also said oil price rises – that have seen the benchmark Brent Crude price rise to above $US100 a barrel – will be short term.

Dr Karen Young, a senior research scholar at the Centre on Global Energy Policy, at New York’s Columbia University, isn’t so sure.

“This is the largest disruption to global oil and gas markets that we have (seen) historically,” she told attendees at the summit held at Australian bank Macquarie’s Manhattan building.

“It’s not a supply problem – it’s a transit problem,” she said, referring to the decreased shipping through the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil exports flow.

“Right now, it’s absolute disruption, absolute crisis. It’s not going to be resolved quickly”.

Dr Young said a “silver lining of the current crisis” was that there were oil and gas supplies from other parts of the globe, but the Iran conflict was still leading to “significant disruption”.

“In a moderate scenario with 10 per cent of normal traffic through the strait to the end of April, that still means two more months until we could probably get back to full production.

“And I think that’s a pretty optimistic scenario.”

An academic on oil prices has said the Iran war has led to an “absolute crisis ”on oil prices that could last well into 2027.

Higher oil prices into 2027

It was likely, she said, that by the close of 2026 oil and natural gas prices could still be elevated.

“By the end of the year it could still be $US80 a barrel price … and it probably will stay that way through 2027”.

While that is lower than Friday’s Brent Crude price of $103 a barrel, that’s far higher than a low of $US55 in April 2025.

Pipelines from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which bypass the strait, have allowed some fuel to leave those nations despite the conflict. But Dr Young said if Iran attacked “those two very important pipelines” it could lead to a “more permanent escalated price level”.

Data centres have become a target in the war. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

The building of ever more data centres, to funnel internet traffic, has become a key investment area.

Dr Young said it had been “very surprising” that Iran had attacked three data centres over the last two weeks.

“We haven’t really thought about attacks on these facilities,” she said adding that the US and its allies may need to look at protecting not just obvious targets, like military bases and oilfields, but data centres too.

Then White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci and Donald Trump. Picture: Twitter

White House ‘divide’ on war

Anthony Scaramucci also spoke at the summit. He infamously served just 11 days as White House press secretary during Donald Trump’s first term.

“Sometimes I say 954,000 seconds, because it makes it sound longer and makes me feel better,” he quipped to the room full of Australian and US investors.

The managing partner of investment firm Skybridge Capital has become a critic of Mr Trump but says he still knows how he ticks due to his many years close to the man would become president.

“There is an (Iran War) divide in the White House: a JD Vance-Donald Trump divide,” he said.

“They campaigned on peace, on no more ‘forever wars’. The war that we’re in right now, JD Vance has leaked that he didn’t really want to do it and that upset the president, so he’s been iced out a little bit.”

Speaking on Friday, US time, Mr Vance wouldn’t be drawn on claims of differences between him and Mr Trump. He told reporters “the national security team was cohesive” and he would not debate war strategy in the press.

Smoke emerging from the Source Blessing cargo vessel in The Gulf, just north of Dubai on March 13. (Photo by Handout / various sources / AFP).

‘Taken aback’ by Iran

Mr Scaramucci said of Iran’s military continuing to fight, Tehran attacking its neighbours and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz: “None of this was in the plan”.

The “plan” sold to Mr Trump, he claimed, was based on the previous experience of Iran having “a measured response” to US and Israeli attacks.

“I think they’ve been taken aback by what’s happened here so far”.

Mr Scaramucci said he saw three ways the conflict would end. One was “stalemate” and “de-escalation” where the strait reopened but the Iranian regime remained in place with occasional Israeli bombing. Another was the US putting ground troops around the strait to remove mines. Thirdly, it could become a “protracted situation” where Iran continued to be hit and becomes a “failed state”.

“The fourth possibility would be what the president would like which is a secularist comes in and stabilises the government which is now going to a satellite to the United States.”

That would be similar to what occurred in Venezuela, he said.

“I honestly see that as less than a 1 per cent chance”.

But, Mr Scaramucci said, the US president will insist he won whatever comes to pass.

“’I won it in the first hour, I’m a winner, you’re a loser’,” he said, paraphrasing Mr Trump.

“He’s been (saying) that for 50 years.”