The US Energy Information Administration lifted its fourth-quarter Brent oil forecast to $105 a barrel in the October Short-Term Energy Outlook published on 6 October, a $14 increase on the September edition. The agency now sees Brent averaging $96 across 2026 as a whole.
Then it steps back down. The same Brent oil forecast puts 2027 at $84 a barrel, roughly $21 below the figure the agency expects for the current quarter. That gap is the document’s real content, because it says the EIA reads the present spike as a supply interruption that unwinds rather than a new price level.
The EIA sits above the market for Q4 and below it for 2027. Source: EIA, OilPrice.com · Chart: FinanceFeedsThe EIA Expects 4.5 Million Barrels a Day Shut In
The revision rests on supply that cannot reach buyers. The EIA attributes the move to “increased attacks on oil infrastructure and tankers around the Middle East,” singling out the strike on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, which “temporarily halted flows on a crucial bypass used to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz.”
That bypass matters because it is the route around the chokepoint. With it interrupted, the agency models shut-in production “averaging 4.5 million b/d during that quarter,” which is the number doing the work in the Brent oil forecast. Freight costs compound it. The outlook notes that “high tanker rates, which reached record levels in September, reflect increasing insurance costs and are putting additional upward pressure on delivered crude oil prices.”
September Averaged $114, and the Market Has Since Cooled
Brent averaged $114 a barrel in September, which the EIA puts at $23 above the August average. Prices have come well off that. The front-month December contract settled at $101.41 on 7 October, up 0.83% on the day within a $100.76 to $102.35 range, while WTI traded at $89.79. That is already below the quarterly average the Brent oil forecast calls for.
Brent is up 8.03% over the past month. Source: OilPrice.comThe month has still been strong in context, with Brent up 8.03% over four weeks and 40.62% year to date. Much of the recent path has run through the Hormuz question, Kharg Island and China’s halt to fuel exports, with OPEC+ holding its November output target rather than adding barrels into the disruption.
Investor Takeaway
The agency’s forecast assumes 4.5 million barrels a day of shut-in production through the fourth quarter, which is the assumption the whole revision rests on.
Why the Brent Oil Forecast Falls to $84 in 2027
The agency is explicit about the mechanism behind the lower Brent oil forecast. It expects “the combination of workarounds to export oil from the Middle East” to cut shut-in volumes steadily, allowing “the majority of production in the region to return to pre-conflict averages by the end of 2Q27.” Once barrels flow again, “depleted global oil inventories build throughout next year” and prices fall as stocks rebuild.
Everything in the 2027 number therefore depends on rerouting working and the attacks stopping. The EIA is forecasting a logistics recovery more than a demand shift, and the 2027 Brent oil forecast is only as good as that assumption.
The Futures Curve Disagrees With the Brent Oil Forecast
Traders are not positioned the way the agency is, and the gap runs in opposite directions at each end of the Brent oil forecast. Brent’s December 2026 contract sits at $101.41 against the EIA’s $105 for the quarter, so the market is $3.59 cheaper than the government on the near term. Run the twelve monthly 2027 contracts and they average $89.60, which is $5.60 above the EIA’s $84.
The curve is steeply backwardated beyond that, falling to $82.93 for December 2027, $76.15 for December 2028 and $69.84 by December 2030. Both the agency and the market expect relief. The EIA simply wants less of it now and more of it later.
The curve falls from $101.41 to $69.84 by December 2030. Source: OilPrice.com, EIA · Chart: FinanceFeedsWhat Would Break the Brent Oil Forecast
Three things would. A strike that halts exports for longer than the EIA assumes would push shut-ins above 4.5 million barrels a day and the fourth quarter above $105. A durable Hormuz settlement would collapse the risk premium faster than the agency’s second-quarter 2027 timetable. The third is already visible in the physical market, where OilPrice.com reported Dated Brent above $120 on 2 October while the futures benchmark held near $101, a spread that says cargoes are scarcer than the screen price implies.
Investor Takeaway
Brent’s 2027 futures strip averages $89.60 against the EIA’s $84 forecast, so the market expects less relief next year than the agency does.