Citi Lifts Brent Outlook but Still Sees Oil Falling in 2027
Citi Lifts Brent Outlook but Still Sees Oil Falling in 2027 Julianne Geiger is a veteran energy journalist and market analyst with more than a decade of experience covering the global oil and gas sector.
Her… Citi has raised its third-quarter Brent crude forecast to $80 per barrel from $75 as the U.S.-Iran war drags on and repeated attempts at a deal fail to restore normal oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
The bank still expects the conflict to be resolved, but the five-month war has lasted longer than Citi anticipated and kept more geopolitical risk in crude prices.
Citi left its fourth-quarter Brent forecast unchanged at $70 per barrel and still sees the benchmark averaging $65 in 2027.
Brent futures were trading at $83.11 per barrel on Friday afternoon, up $0.62, whileWest Texas Intermediategained $0.51 to $77.80.
Concerns over U.S.-Iran negotiations helped lift prices after Brent briefly fell below $80 earlier in the week on renewed hopes for a Hormuz agreement.
Citi’s latest revision is another retreat from the bank’s aggressively bearish call earlier this summer.
In early July, Citi recommended selling summer rallies and predicted Brent wouldfall to $60-$65by year-end as Hormuz traffic normalized and Washington and Tehran moved toward a broader agreement.
Neither assumption has aged particularly well.
Shipping through Hormuz remains heavily constrained, Middle East oil production is still well below pre-war levels, and attacks on commercial vessels have continued even as negotiators discuss possible arrangements for the waterway.
Citi’s December outlook had Brentaveraging just $62for all of 2026, with a bearish scenario of $50 and a bullish case of $75 if geopolitical disruptions actually materialized.
Brent spent much of the second quarter well above those levels after the war removed millions of barrels per day from the market.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | +0.92% |
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