Global oil markets
Global oil prices and inventories
The Brent crude oil spot price averaged $75 per barrel (b) in February, $4/b lower than in January and $8/b lower than at the same time last year. Crude oil prices fell during February driven largely by economic growth concerns related to potential tariffs by both the United States and other trade partners. On February 1, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order announcing the imposition of tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China. Subsequently, the implementation of tariffs for most imports from Mexico and Canada have been delayed until early April, so the effects of those potential tariffs are not reflected in this outlook.
The evolving tariff policy has added uncertainty around expectations for global oil demand growth, concerns about which had persistently weighed on oil prices over the last year. On the supply side, any potential ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine conflict could add Russian oil volumes back into the market. Lastly, continued supply growth from producers outside of the OPEC+ agreement, primarily in North and South America, adds additional downward pressure to our price forecast in 2026.
Although crude oil prices fell in February and were near $70/b in the first week of March, we expect key upward price pressures will push the Brent price back into the mid-$70/b range in the coming months. This month’s outlook includes the introduction of new U.S. sanctions on Iranian crude oil issued on February 24, which have the potential to remove significant volumes of crude oil from the market. Similarly, we expect the recent announcement revoking licenses for Venezuelan oil production and exports to the United States will reduce Venezuela’s oil production beginning in March, tightening near-term oil market balances significantly compared with our February STEO.
Despite less production from Iran and Venezuela in this month’s forecast, we still expect OPEC production will grow over the next two years. OPEC+ reaffirmed its commitment on March 3 to proceed with “a gradual and flexible return” of the 2.2 million barrels per day (b/d) voluntary adjustments starting on April 1, 2025. This announcement included the stipulation that the production increases could be paused or reversed subject to market conditions, which leaves some uncertainty about whether increases will materialize in line with the announcement.
We anticipate global oil inventories will begin to build in the third quarter of 2025 (3Q25). In our February forecast, we had expected inventories to begin increasing in 2Q25. Our expectation that inventory draws will continue through mid-2025 is in part due to the recent announcements concerning sanctions on Iran and the revoked license for Venezuela’s production and exports to the United States.
Although we expect oil market balances to be tighter this year than we expected in the February STEO, we maintain our forecast that Brent will average about $74/b this year. With tighter forecast balances, we now expect prices to average $75/b in 3Q25, or $1/b more than our forecast last month. Higher forecast summer prices are offset by lower prices during the first half of the year, owing to market concerns over potential macroeconomic weakness and OPEC+ supply additions.
We forecast that by the end of this year rising oil supply will mean more oil is being produced globally than is being consumed, leading to inventory accumulation and downward pressure on prices through the remainder of our forecast period. As a result, we forecast the Brent crude oil price will fall to $66/b in December 2026, averaging $68/b in 2026. Our 2026 Brent price forecast is $2/b higher than we forecast last month, mostly as a result of less crude oil production from OPEC next year than we previously expected, which largely reflects our expectation of less crude oil production from Iran and Venezuela.
Significant uncertainty remains in our price forecast. The impact of existing sanctions on Russia and recently announced sanctions on Iran, as well as the revocation of licenses for Venezuela oil exports, have increased oil price volatility in recent weeks while markets and trade patterns adjust. Additionally, the extent to which OPEC+ adheres to announced production increases will be a key factor for oil prices in the coming months.
Global oil production and consumption
Global liquid fuels production growth in our forecast increases in 2025 and 2026 due to a combination of the scheduled gradual increase in OPEC+ production and further growth from countries outside of OPEC+. Global liquid fuels production increases by 1.4 million b/d in 2025 and 1.6 million b/d in 2026.
Although OPEC+ recently announced it plans to adhere to gradual production increases beginning in April 2025, we still anticipate OPEC+ members will produce less than the organization’s announced targets to limit increases in global oil inventories. We expect growth of less than 0.2 million b/d in 2025 from OPEC+ producers, compared with a decrease of 1.3 million b/d in 2024, before OPEC+ production increases by 0.5 million b/d in 2026.
We still expect production growth in our forecast to be led by countries outside of OPEC+. These countries will increase production by 1.2 million b/d in 2025 and by 1.0 million b/d in 2026. We expect the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Guyana will drive production growth over the forecast period.
Oil consumption growth in our forecast continues to be less than the pre-pandemic trend. Forecast global liquid fuels consumption increases by 1.3 million b/d in 2025 and 1.2 million b/d in 2026, driven primarily by demand from non-OECD Asia. We expect India will increase its consumption of liquid fuels by 0.3 million b/d in both 2025 and 2026, compared with an increase of 0.2 million in 2024, driven by rising demand for transportation fuels. We forecast China’s liquid fuels consumption will grow by 0.3 million b/d in 2025 and by 0.2 million b/d 2026, up from an increase of less than 0.1 million b/d in 2024 as Beijing’s economic stimulus efforts drive higher demand growth.
