Let’s Talk Energy and dive into the global oil market to understand how supply, demand and geopolitics could influence prices for the most important traded commodity in the world. Forecasters almost universally agree that crude markets are likely to face a significant oversupply in the months ahead as growth in oil production outpaces growth in demand. But, while prices for benchmark Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) have certainly drifted down in recent months, both prices and balances proved more resilient into the end of 2025 than many expected and are continuing to hold up in the early days of 2026.
How much extra oil might be sloshing around in the global market, and will it necessarily trickle down to the prices consumers pay for fuel?
Will geopolitical turbulence, including the US arrest of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, outweigh the fundamentals to support higher-than-expected oil prices? If prices do fall further, how might key producers such as OPEC+ and US shale players react?
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Let’s Talk Energy is a Rystad Energy Production.