Oil prices decelerated to a more than three-and-half month low Wednesday as buyers drew enthusiasm from a potential peace deal between Iran and U.S. in sight – formally culminating more than 100-days of tensions in West Asia which also transpired in the closure of the crucial energy route, the Strait of Hormuz.

Although analysts and observers opine that a complete return to normalcy may not happen immediately.

During trade Wednesday, benchmark brent crude futures declined 1.52% from its previous close to $77.76 per barrel.

Largely mirroring a similar trend, U.S. West Texas Intermediate also slipped about 1.9% to $74.60 per barrel.

In a past midnight announcement Sunday (Indian Standard Time), U.S. President Donald Trump announced that a peace deal with Iran was “complete” with the formal signing scheduled for Friday, June 19.

Though concerns continue to linger as Tehran accuses Israel of violating the truce deal by attacking Lebanon.

‘Recovery may not be immediate’

The Paris-headquartered International Energy Agency (IEA) in their latest monthly forecast held that a complete recovery would not happen immediately.

“As mines will have to be removed, the main shipping lines and supply chain will take time to normalise,” it stated, adding, “Overall, global oil supply is expected to fall by 3.9 mb/d on an average in 2026 to 102.4 mb/d. Gulf supply losses will be partly offset by continued gains from non-OPEC+ producers.”

Speaking to The Hindu, Prashant Vashisht, senior vice-president and Co-Group Head of Corporate Ratings at ICRA, held that it may take about eight to nine months for the inventories to be stocked up to pre-war levels which would continue to reflect in elevated effective price of oil reaching the shores.

“It will take about 8-9 months for inventories [of oil producing countries] to be stocked up again, therefore, crude prices and tanker rates would remain higher than pre-war levels,” he said.

Mr. Vashisht added that considering the volatile situation, countries may also rush to stock up their reserves.

At the time of writing Wednesday evening, Brent crude futures recovered their losses marginally and were trading 0.6% higher at $79.44 per barrel.

On the inflationary prospect, Maulik Patel, Head of Research at Equirus Securities told The Hindu that while lower crude price are a certain positive, it would “gradually ease imported inflation pressures”.

“However, the benefits are likely to play out over the coming quarters rather than immediately,” he stated, adding separately, “That said, the overall macro-outlook is improving compared with the uncertainty seen over the past two months.”