The forecasts keep climbing
A month ago, triple-digit oil felt like a tail risk. Now Brent crude is trading above $107 a barrel, WTI sits near $96, and the biggest names in commodities research are scrambling to raise their targets.
Wood Mackenzie fired the loudest shot last week. The consultancy said Brent could "soon hit $150" and that $200 was "not outside the realms of possibility" in 2026. Their argument boils down to one point: the supply volumes at risk today are dimensionally bigger than anything the market faced during the 2022 Ukraine crisis, and this time the barrels are not just rerouting — they are physically gone.
What the banks are saying
Goldman Sachs raised its Q4 Brent forecast to $71 from $66 in a base case that assumes the Strait of Hormuz reopens within weeks. Under a two-month disruption scenario, their Q4 estimate jumps to $93. For March, Goldman expects Brent to average above $100.
Barclays warned that Brent could test $120 if the conflict drags on another couple of weeks, with a higher-end scenario of $150 before month-end.
UBS sees prices staying above $100 and flagged $120 as likely if Hormuz flows remain disrupted. At that level, the bank said, markets enter "demand destruction territory" — the point where buyers simply stop buying because they cannot afford it.
The $200 math
Vandana Hari of Vanda Insights pointed out that Middle Eastern crudes like Oman and Dubai have "already crossed the $150 threshold, so $200 is already within sight." Brent and WTI, which are priced off Atlantic basin supply, have lagged their Gulf equivalents because alternative barrels from the Americas and West Africa can still move freely.
But the gap is narrowing. Gulf states have cut total oil production by at least 10 million barrels a day since the Strait of Hormuz was blockaded. The IEA released a record 400 million barrels from strategic reserves, yet prices barely flinched.
Adi Imsirovic at the University of Oxford called $200 oil "perfectly possible" but warned it "would be a major handbrake to the world economy." Bob McNally of Rapidan Energy framed the question differently: there is some price above the 2008 record of $147.50 — roughly $224 in today's dollars — where "buyers exiting through demand destruction" finally caps the rally. Nobody knows exactly where that threshold sits.
The bears still have a case
Not everyone is panicking. Sasha Foss at Marex in London called $200 Brent "pretty outlandish." Her reasoning: producers outside the Gulf are ramping up. The United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and Guyana are all adding barrels. Alternative shipping routes around the Cape of Good Hope, while slower and more expensive, are starting to absorb some of the displaced crude.
J.P. Morgan's base case still sees Brent averaging around $60 by the end of the year, assuming soft demand fundamentals reassert themselves once the conflict winds down. Their analysts noted that global oil supply was set to outpace demand even before the war started.
What decides the ceiling
The range of outcomes has never been this wide. Goldman sees $71 Brent by Q4. Wood Mackenzie sees $200 as plausible before then. The spread between those two numbers is a bet on how fast the Strait of Hormuz reopens.
If shipping resumes within weeks, prices likely fall back below $80 by summer as spare capacity and reserve releases catch up. If the strait stays choked into the second quarter, the market runs out of cushions. Strategic reserves deplete, alternative routes hit capacity limits, and Asian buyers start competing aggressively for every available cargo.
Brent briefly spiked above $119 on March 19 after Iran struck Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG complex. It pulled back within hours on de-escalation hopes. That single session captured the dynamic perfectly: every headline can swing crude $10 in either direction, and the next one could push it toward territory the market has never seen.