If Iran war were to end, how soon would you feel relief at the gas pumps?

Consumers struggling with higher gas prices as a result of the Iran war may be feeling optimistic after U.S. President Donald Trump said that a ceasefire in the works,

Consumers struggling with higher gas prices as a result of the Iran war may wonder: with talk of negotiations toward a potential ceasefire, how long would it take to feel relief if the conflict ends?

Since the war began nearly a month ago, gas prices have spiked as a knock-on effect of higher oil prices.

“If you’re low on gas, I’d fill up because I don’t think you’re going to see a resolution of this in the next three or four, five days,” says Jon Allen, a senior fellow at the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History at the University of Toronto.

“I think if there’s going to be a negotiation, it’s going to take some time.”

About 20 per cent of the world’s supply of crude oil has been choked off in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping channel in the Persian Gulf region that Iran has been using for leverage by threatening any ships allied with the U.S. and Israel that try to pass through.

At one point during the conflict, some crude oil prices reached nearly US$120 per barrel.

Amid the volatility of ceasefire proposal talks and Iran’s rejection of the U.S. proposal on Wednesday, the price has continued to fluctuate but hovers around $90 as of publication.

“Energy markets are famously volatile and it has always been impossible to predict where things will go because it’s a market where small changes in supply can have big changes in price, and a lot hinges here on how long that lasts,” says Trevor Tombe, a professor of economics at the University of Calgary.