Brent Crude prices have the potential to hit $70 per barrel over the next three months amid heightened geopolitical risks, according to analysts at Citi.
The investment bank raised its 0-3 month outlook on Brent Crude prices to $70 per barrel from $65 a barrel previously, due to upside pressure from geopolitical risks.
Early on Wednesday, Brent Crude traded 1% higher at above $66 per barrel as the market has started to price in a potential U.S. strike on Iran and the potential of supply disruptions in the region.
“We now think this oil rally has room to extend above our $55-65/bbl forecast range in the coming days,” Citi analysts wrote in a note carried by Investing.com.
Risks to supply disruptions have increased in Iran and Russia, according to the Wall Street bank.
Unlike in the U.S. strikes on Iran in June 2025, the fundamental balances are now much looser in an oversupplied market, Citi noted.
“Of course, oil balances are looser than they were then, and our baseline view is that spikes would provide room for producer hedging, since President Trump wants lower oil prices, and OPEC+ can still raise supply from 2Q’26 if sizeable disruptions occur,” the analysts wrote.
Still, the main protests in Iran – and their brutal suppression – are far from the key oil-producing regions, including Khuzestan, which accounts for about 2.5–3.0 million barrels per day of oil output capacity.
This “reduces the risk of near-term physical supply disruption,” according to Citi’s analysts.
“As a result, current risks are skewed toward political and logistical frictions rather than direct outages, keeping the impact on Iranian crude supply and export flows contained,” the bank noted.
A Brent price rally above $70 per barrel would be only a blip, Citi says, recommending investors to sell any Brent rally above the $70 threshold as market balances are set to further loosen through the first half of this year.
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com
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