Goldman Sachs revamps Brent crude forecast for the rest of 2026

Goldman Sachs just made it official: The pain at the pump is not going away anytime soon. The bank now expects Brent crude to average above $100 a barrel in March and $85 in April, a dramatic upward revision driven by the deepening crisis at the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent futures for May were trading at $100.13 a barrel early Friday, March 13, after spiking to $119.50 on Monday, March 9, their highest level since mid-2022. Since the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran began Feb. 28, Brent has surged more than 36%, and WTI has climbed roughly 39%.

This is no longer a market pricing in fear. It is a market pricing in a genuine, prolonged supply squeeze with no clear end in sight.

Why Goldman revised its forecast so sharply

Goldman’s commodity team, led by analyst Daan Struyven, now assumes the Strait of Hormuz will operate at just 10% of normal flows for 21 days, followed by a 30-day gradual recovery. That is a significant shift from the team’s earlier model, which assumed only a 10-day disruption.

The Strait of Hormuz is the world’s single most critical energy chokepoint. One-fifth of global oil and natural gas supply passes through it every day, Bloomberg reported. With the Strait effectively shut since the start of the conflict, tankers have been stranded, and Gulf producers have been forced to slow or suspend output entirely as onshore storage nears capacity.

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At least 150 tankers have dropped anchor in open Gulf waters, clustered off the coasts of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, according to Reuters ship-tracking data.

Shipping giants including Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, and CMA CGM have suspended operations through the Strait entirely, rerouting vessels around the southern tip of Africa, according to CNBC, adding 10 to 14 days to voyages and piling costs onto an already strained system.

Neither the IEA’s emergency release of 400 million barrels from global reserves nor a U.S. waiver allowing Russian oil sales from floating storage has been enough to meaningfully cool prices. Both measures will take weeks to put real barrels on the market, and the Strait is still shut.

What Goldman’s numbers actually say

Goldman has now published two separate forecast updates within days of each other, each one more alarming than the last. Here is where the numbers stand as of Friday, March 13.

Key Brent crudeforecasts from Goldman’s latest noteMarch Brent average: Above $100 per barrel, reflecting peak war disruption.April Brent average: $85 per barrel, as initial rerouting takes hold.Q4 2026 base case: $71 per barrel for Brent and $67 for WTI, up from prior estimates of $66 and $62.Q4 2026 risk scenario: A two-month Hormuz disruption pushes Goldman’s Q4 Brent estimate to $93 per barrel, up sharply from $71.Later this year: Goldman still expects prices to gradually ease back to the low $70s, but only if flows normalize on schedule.

The bank is telling the market there are two very different stories at play. There is the violent geopolitical squeeze happening right now, and then there is a normalization story that could unfold later in the year.

Which one wins depends almost entirely on how long the strait stays closed.

The broader economic fallout of Brent crude oil price surge

The consequences of $100-per-barrel oil reach well beyond the gas station. Goldman estimates that a sustained 10% rise in oil prices raises headline PCEinflation by about 0.2 percentage points while shaving roughly 0.1 percentage points off GDP growth.

In their upside oil scenario, the bank sees headline PCE peaking at 4.5% in the spring before settling at 3.3% by year end.

Goldman raised its December 2026 headline PCE inflation forecast by 0.8 percentage points to 2.9% and revised GDP growth down 0.3 percentage points to 2.2% on a Q4/Q4 basis.

With the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut, tankers have been stranded, and Gulf producers have been forced to slow or suspend output.

Kitwood/Getty Images

That combination of higher inflation and slower growth has forced Goldman to push back its Federal Reserve rate cut forecast.

The bank now no longer expects a June cut, moving its first rate cut call to September, followed by a second in December. Goldman also raised its recession odds over the next 12 months to 25%.

The disruption is also rippling far beyond crude oil. Qatar’s state energy firm has halted production at its two main LNG facilities following attacks on its industrial sites.

Roughly 20% of global LNG passes through the Strait, nearly all of it from Qatar, according to analysts cited by Time. European natural gas futures jumped around 30% following the news.

OPEC and U.S. shale can only do so much

Saudi Arabia and its OPEC+ allies still have spare capacity sitting idle, and eight OPEC+ members agreed in early March to add 206,000 barrels per day to output from April.

But ramping up production takes weeks, and no amount of extra barrels fixes the problem of ships that physically cannot move through the Strait.

A critical constraint further complicates the situation. The IEA estimates that about 4.2 million barrels per day of oil currently transported through the strait can be redirected via existing pipelines, leaving approximately 16 million barrels a day (per Kpler) at risk if the Strait stays fully closed, Goldman noted.

U.S. shale is also running hard, with Permian basin output at record levels. But domestic production cannot offset a disruption of this magnitude overnight.

Goldman’s analysts describe the current hit to Persian Gulf exports as the largest oil supply shock on record, surpassing even the 1973 OPEC embargo and the 1990 Gulf War in terms of its immediate impact on flows.

Until the Strait reopens, Goldman’s message is clear. At $100 a barrel, the bank is not describing an oil-price ceiling. It is describing a floor.

Related: Oil shock sends blunt message on stock market inflation risk

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