Oil prices are set to continue their downward trajectory and slid to as low as $50 per barrel Brent by the middle of this year, amid ample supply, according to analysts at India’s SBI Research.
“Oil prices in general have remained subdued due to the OPEC+ decision to increase production,” the analysts wrote in a note carried by Fortune India.
The Indian basket is expected “to soften in line with expected trends internationally: Our base case is $50 per barrel… or even lower by June 2026,” the analysts said.
SBI Research’s estimate is not far from the base-case projections of major Wall Street investment banks.
Oil prices are set to further drop into next year from current levels amid a large surplus on the market, with the U.S. benchmark WTI Crude expected to average $53 per barrel in 2026, Goldman Sachs said in November.
The surplus this year will be 2 million barrels per day (bpd) on average, Goldman reckons, but notes that 2026 will be the last year of the current big supply wave hitting the market.
The oil market is set to rebalance in 2027 as 2026 will see “the last big oil supply wave the market has to work through,” Daan Struyven, co-head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC in November.
In the latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecast that the Brent price will drop to an average of $55 per barrel in the first quarter of 2026 and will stay near that price for the rest of the year. This would be the result of growing global oil production and lower demand over the winter, which are set to accelerate the accumulation of oil inventories.
These forecasts were made before the extraction of Nicolas Maduro by the U.S. and the tipping point in the U.S. pressure on Venezuela, the world’s biggest oil reserves holder.
Oil prices haven’t moved much since the U.S. blitz in Venezuela amid still uncertain prospects about the country’s oil supply and the ability and willingness of U.S. companies to lead a rebound in Venezuelan oil output.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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