Carley Garner, senior commodity market strategist at Carley Trading, has a take on oil that should make energy bulls nervous: strip out the Iran conflict, and crude would be trading significantly lower right now, in her view.
That’s a striking claim when you look at where prices actually are. Brent crude has been trading in the $69 to $73 range through February 2026, while WTI sits around $66.36 per barrel as of February 23, 2026. The implied gap between current prices and Garner’s fundamental baseline is substantial.
Fear Premium, Not Fundamentals
Garner’s thesis isn’t just a gut call. She points out that since oil peaked in March 2022, we’ve seen multiple rallies just like this one, each accompanied by the threat of supply disruption from geopolitical conflict. But in reality, very few barrels of oil were ever actually taken off the market. The pattern is consistent: fear spikes prices, supply holds steady, and the rally fades.
The Iran situation looks like a replay of that same playbook. Markets are pricing in disruption risk, but if history is the guide, the actual supply impact may be minimal. That makes the current price level a geopolitical premium sitting on top of a much softer fundamental floor.
The recent price data supports the fear-driven narrative. WTI hit a 12-month low of $55.44 on December 16, 2025, before rallying sharply as Iran tensions escalated. The United States Oil Fund The United States Oil Fund (NYSEARCA:USO) has reflected that move directly, gaining 30.42% year-to-date through March 3, 2026.
What $40s Oil Does to the Majors
If Garner is right and the Iran premium eventually deflates, the downstream consequences for the big integrated oil companies are significant.
ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) already showed how sensitive earnings are to price moves. Full-year 2025 net income fell to $28.84 billion from $33.68 billion in 2024, despite record production of 4.7 million oil-equivalent barrels per day. That compression happened even as Brent traded well above Garner’s projected lows. A drop to Garner’s projected lows would be a much harder hit.
Chevron (NYSE:CVX) tells a similar story. CEO Mike Wirth acknowledged the environment directly: “2025 was a year of significant achievement…industry-leading free cash flow growth and superior shareholder returns, despite declining oil prices.” That language was crafted for a world where Brent averaged $64 per barrel in Q4 2025, well above where Garner believes fundamentals alone would place prices.
The Bottom Line
Garner’s framework is a useful lens for energy investors right now. The Iran conflict has injected real fear into the crude market, and fear has a price. But if this rally follows the same pattern as the ones since 2022, the supply disruption may never materialize at scale. Whether the current rally reflects a genuine supply shock or another iteration of a geopolitical fear premium remains an open question as the Iran situation develops.
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