Oil Price Forecast: WTI and Brent Locked in a $60–$70 Geopolitical Range

Oil (CL=F, BZ=F) – risk premium, regional spreads and policy shocks clustered around $60–$70

Oil and WTI (CL=F) – Gulf risk is the floor around $60–$65

Spot WTI (CL=F) is trading around $63.55 per barrel, up $0.26 (+0.41%), after spending the week in the low $60s. That price is not random; it is the cash value of the market’s fear that Iran–US talks can fail and the Gulf can flare. Negotiations ended without a clear agenda. Tehran wants the file limited to nuclear issues, while Washington insists on adding missiles and regional proxies. As long as that gap exists, traders must price in a non-zero chance of miscalculation in the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly a fifth of global flows transit that chokepoint, including exports from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran. Any threat to those lanes is worth several dollars of risk premium for Oil and CL=F, even when no barrels are actually lost. At the same time, the weekly trend is softer. Oil has fallen on a weekly basis because global risk markets sold off and the narrative of oversupply in 2026 keeps circulating. That push-pull defines the current band: macro funds fade strength on fundamentals, while geopolitical buyers step in when CL=F dips toward $60–$62. The result is a visible support zone in that range rather than a launchpad for a vertical spike.

Brent (BZ=F) – geopolitics lifts, Saudi pricing caps

Brent (BZ=F) trades near $68.05 per barrel, up $0.50 (+0.74%). The level reflects two forces that work against each other. The first is a $4–$5 per-barrel premium versus CL=F, compensating for seaborne risk in and around the Gulf. The second is the weight of weaker demand signals in Asia. Saudi Arabia cut the official selling price for Arab Light to Asian buyers for March to the lowest level in almost five years, and it is the fourth consecutive monthly cut. If refiners were desperate for barrels, Riyadh would be raising OSPs, not slicing them. That behaviour tells you demand is contestable and buyers are pushing back on high differentials. Put together, BZ=F at around $68 is not evidence of a brutally tight market; it is the market’s compromise between geopolitical risk and softening fundamentals. If Iran–US tensions ease even modestly, Brent can slip quickly back into the mid-$60s, because the underlying supply–demand profile alone does not justify sustained high-60s pricing.

Azeri Light and regional spreads – Caspian barrels confirm the global band

Azerbaijan’s Azeri Light is quoted around $70.7 per barrel, up $0.93 (+1.33%), with FOB Ceyhan close to $68.19, up roughly 1.37%. The structure here matters more than the brand itself. Azeri Light typically trades at a premium to Brent (BZ=F) due to its quality, and a spread of roughly $2–$3 at current levels is consistent with a normal market, not a stressed one. The Ceyhan FOB at just over $68 shows logistics in the Eastern Med are functioning and there is no forced selling or abnormal congestion. For context, Azerbaijan’s 2026 budget is based on $65 oil. With spot around $70.7, the state enjoys a comfortable cushion. That tells you producers in this band have no incentive to engineer a supply shock higher; they are already above budget assumptions. From a trader’s perspective, the Caspian barrel confirms the global equilibrium: high-quality crudes cluster in the $68–$72 corridor, consistent with Brent’s $65–$70 range and WTI $60–$65.

Saudi OSP cuts and OPEC pricing – oversupply worries, not shortage

The most important signal on the physical side comes from Saudi pricing. Cutting Arab Light’s OSP to Asia to a near five-year low, and doing it four months in a row, is a direct admission that refiners are not willing to pay prior premia. Analysts already talk about “continued expectations of oversupply,” and Saudi policy validates that view. At the same time, other benchmarks reinforce the picture. The OPEC basket sits near $66.65, up 2.63%, in the middle of the WTI–Brent corridor. Louisiana Light around $65.94, up nearly 4.75%, shows Gulf Coast grades are well bid but not euphoric. Bonny Light at roughly $78.62, down around 2.84%, confirms that even some premium West African crudes are giving back price as refiners adjust slates. This is not the pricing pattern of an undersupplied world. It is the pattern of a market balanced on a knife edge: supply is ample enough that OPEC members must defend share with discounts, while geopolitical risk and shipping issues stop prices from sliding into a true bear market.

US policy, Trump climate stance and global decarbonisation – demand cap vs supply support

On the policy front, the US is pushing in the opposite direction of Europe and many emerging regions. A federal judge ruled that the Department of Energy violated advisory rules by using a hand-picked climate panel that downplayed the urgency of global warming. That report underpinned efforts to weaken Obama-era climate rules such as the CO₂ endangerment finding. Even with that legal slap, the administration is still prioritising oil, gas and coal over rapid expansion of green energy and cleantech. The strategy is clear: dilute the Inflation Reduction Act, slow offshore wind, discourage capital for large renewable projects and back more hydrocarbon output. For Oil, that keeps medium-term US supply capacity robust. Shale basins and Gulf of Mexico projects will not face the same regulatory friction they would under a more aggressive climate regime. In contrast, Europe has already reached the point where wind and solar delivered more electricity than fossil fuels in 2025, and regions like the Middle East and Latin America are ramping renewable capacity. Over a 5–10 year horizon, that caps structural demand growth for Oil, even if the next few years remain driven by supply decisions and geopolitics rather than consumption collapse.

Global benchmarks and products – the broader slate backs a stable $60–$70 core

Across the broader complex, pricing is remarkably consistent with a stable but not overheated Oil market. Alongside CL=F at $63.55 and BZ=F at $68.05, the OPEC basket at $66.65, Azeri Light at $70.7, FOB Ceyhan at $68.19, Louisiana Light near $65.94 and Bonny Light around $78.62 define a clear hierarchy that is fundamentally rational: sweet, light grades carry premium, regional logistics and quality explain the spread dispersion, but there is no sign of panic in any direction. Refined products confirm the story. US gasoline futures sit around $1.95 per gallon, up a modest 1.38%, consistent with demand that is solid, not booming, and with refiners still able to pass some costs to the consumer without triggering immediate demand destruction. That cross-market consistency makes it hard to argue for an imminent structural break in either direction; instead, it favours trading the range.

Technical structure for Oil, WTI (CL=F) and Brent (BZ=F) – key zones for traders

Technically, WTI (CL=F) has carved out a support shelf in the $60–$62 band, with the current $63.55 print hovering just above it. A decisive move below $60 would mean the geopolitical premium is leaking out faster than expected and would open a path into the high-50s, where producer discipline would likely become a central topic again. On the upside, the low-to-mid-$70s remain the logical resistance area for CL=F, as that is where demand pushback becomes visible and where the combination of Saudi discounting and oversupply narratives usually re-emerges. For Brent (BZ=F), support sits around $65–$66, resistance just above $70–$72. With spot near $68.05, the benchmark is mid-range, vulnerable to being pushed either direction by new headlines out of the Gulf, Russian flows, or shifts in OPEC rhetoric. Importantly, regional grades like Azeri Light and Bonny Light are not breaking out relative to Brent; spreads remain inside historical norms. That supports mean-reversion trades on spreads rather than aggressive momentum bets.

Oil, CL=F and BZ=F – buy, sell or hold at current levels

When you combine the geopolitical premium, Saudi pricing behaviour, regional spreads, US policy stance and the technical picture, the conclusion is straightforward. Oil, WTI (CL=F) and Brent (BZ=F) sit in a range where producers are profitable, consumers are not yet in revolt, and volatility is being driven primarily by headlines rather than structural scarcity or collapse. In that environment, an outright long at any price is lazy, and an outright structural short ignores Hormuz risk and policy noise. The rational stance is to treat the market as a Buy on weakness and Hold on strength. In practice, that means viewing WTI (CL=F) dips into the $60–$61 zone and Brent (BZ=F) pullbacks toward $65 as buying opportunities, with realistic upside targets in the mid-$60s to low-$70s for CL=F and high-$60s to low-$70s for BZ=F. Spikes that take WTI above $70 or Brent above $75 without confirmed physical disruption should be treated as levels to scale out rather than chase. On that basis, the verdict on Oil, CL=F and BZ=F at current prices is cautious Buy, expressed via disciplined buying of dips inside the established range rather than blind exposure.

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