The next sustained oil bull market may be built on inventory replenishment rather than a sudden supply disruption, as governments and companies face mandatory rebuilding of depleted strategic reserves amid elevated geopolitical uncertainty. The world's emergency buffer has been substantially drained after coordinated releases by International Energy Agency members, including the United States, Europe, Japan, and South Korea, to cushion the Iran crisis. Many U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve releases were structured as exchange agreements that obligate recipients to return barrels with a premium, creating future purchasing obligations that effectively shift demand forward. Analysis suggests strategic reserve replenishment alone could add 500,000 to 750,000 barrels per day of additional demand through at least 2028, coinciding with a potential recovery in Chinese refinery activity and commercial inventory rebuilding. This convergence of policy-driven acquisitions, precautionary stockholding, and logistics-risk premiums could establish a firmer price floor than many current forecasts assume, even without a major production loss.