ExxonMobil Senior Vice President Neil Chapman warned at the Bernstein Conference in New York on Thursday that dated Brent crude could surge to $150 to $160 per barrel in the coming weeks as global inventories approach what he called "unheard of inventory levels."
Chapman gave a short timetable for the risk, saying "you can debate whether that's going to hit those really low levels in two weeks or three weeks. Once you get to that point, then you'll see prices shoot up." He repeated the price band several times: dated Brent, he said, "will shoot up… up to $150, $160."
The scale of the potential move matters because Chapman said commercial stocks have been drawn across the board — crude oil, liquids, gasoline, diesel and jet fuel — even as nations released strategic petroleum reserves to temper the squeeze. He added that crude trading in a roughly $90 to $110 range for "the last whatever it is, six weeks" has been sustained only by running down those inventories and "it can't last forever."
Chapman's warning landed against volatile recent price action. Dated crude averaged $117 in April but slipped to near $103 for May, a decline that sits uneasily with his near‑term shock scenario. The gap between the recent softening and Chapman's call for a $150–$160 spike is the hard friction in his argument: prices have already eased from an April peak even as he says underlying stocks are perilously low.
That sequence of moves traces back to geopolitical shocks earlier this year. Dated crude was hovering near $75 a barrel before the U.S. and Israel launched a bombing campaign on Iran in late February; markets then ran up and later cooled as policymakers released reserves and commercial inventories fell. Chapman placed the inventory drawdown at the center of the next move: if physical stocks reach the "really, really low levels" he warned of, the market will have little spare capacity to absorb supply shocks.
The day Chapman's forecast was delivered Exxon shareholders also approved a corporate governance move: a plan to change the company's legal domicile from New Jersey to Texas. The vote does not alter Chapman's market reading, but it folded a major corporate decision into a day already dominated by a forceful price warning.
The immediate consequence for consumers and businesses is straightforward: a spike toward $150–$160 would push fuel and petroleum‑linked prices markedly higher. What the market must now resolve is timing and magnitude — Chapman set a two‑to‑three‑week window for inventories to fall to critical levels, but he did not quantify how low stocks would have to be in absolute terms to trigger the move. That remains the single, consequential unanswered question.
If commercial stocks do not collapse to the "really, really low levels" Chapman described, crude prices are more likely to drift back toward the $90–$110 band he cited. If inventories finish their drawdown in the two‑to‑three‑week window he outlined, markets will face a rapid repricing toward the $150–$160 range he warned about.
