Goldman Sachs, a big global investment bank, says oil prices will stay low this year and next. They believe oil production outside of OPEC countries will keep growing, even without counting U.S. shale oil.

In a message to their clients on Tuesday, Goldman Sachs said they expect the price of Brent oil (a world oil price) to be about $56 per barrel in 2026. They also expect U.S. oil (West Texas Intermediate or WTI) to be around $52 per barrel in 2026.

They kept their 2025 price predictions the same: $60 per barrel for Brent and $56 for WTI. This shows they still think oil prices will be lower, continuing a trend where many banks and experts are lowering their oil price forecasts.

Goldman Sachs based this on more oil coming from countries outside OPEC, except Russia and U.S. shale oil. They expect these other producers to increase oil production by about 1 million barrels per day in the next two years.

Countries like Brazil, Canada, Guyana, and Norway are all producing more oil. This extra oil could cover the world’s oil demand growth, which is about 1 million barrels per day right now.

For U.S. shale oil, Goldman Sachs said the lower oil prices in 2025 and 2026 might cause U.S. shale oil production to peak earlier and at a lower level than before. Many experts believe this peak will happen soon, maybe around 2027.

In March, at a big energy event called CERAWeek 2025, leaders from oil companies like ConocoPhillips and Occidental Petroleum also said they expect U.S. oil production to stop growing between 2027 and 2030.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) also thinks U.S. oil production will peak around 2027. Their recent report said U.S. production will reach 14 million barrels per day in 2027 and stay around that level for a few years before slowly going down.

Low oil prices are already making companies less confident. But many U.S. oil companies have plans to protect themselves for the next 6 to 18 months with prices above $70. So, the price drop probably won’t happen right away, but it could be quite big next year or early in 2027.

In the short term, the U.S. will likely produce more oil, which will add extra supply to the market. Also, the oil group OPEC+ is slowly increasing its production again and thinking about producing even more next year.

In May, OPEC+ agreed to raise oil production for the second month in a row, increasing June’s output by 411,000 barrels per day. They made a similar increase for May. The total increase for April, May, and June is 960,000 barrels per day. This is about 44% of the 2.2 million barrels per day they had previously cut since 2022.

It looks like there might soon be too much oil on the market. If that happens, Goldman Sachs’ prediction of oil prices dropping below $60 in 2026 seems very possible.

Published: 29th May 2025

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