Oil near $100
- Crude prices pushed back toward the $100 per barrel mark on renewed geopolitical jitters and momentum trading. (youtube.com) - Recent reports put Brent around $101–$105 and WTI roughly $92–$96 per barrel. (x.com) - Traders and analysts say oil at these levels could reintroduce transport cost and inflation pressure across markets. ( )
Oil prices have climbed back toward triple digits in April, with Brent crude above $100 a barrel as traders price in fresh Middle East supply risk. (eia.gov) The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Brent averaged $103 a barrel in March and is expected to peak at $115 in the second quarter of 2026 if current disruptions persist. The agency said West Asian producers including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates shut in an estimated 7.5 million barrels a day in March, with outages rising to 9.1 million barrels a day in April. (eia.gov) The bottleneck is the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway used by Gulf exporters to move crude to world markets. The Energy Information Administration said restricted flows through the strait have limited exports and forced storage to fill in countries that rely on that route. (eia.gov) The price move matters beyond oil traders because diesel and gasoline usually follow crude higher with a lag. The Energy Information Administration said U.S. average retail gasoline prices are forecast to reach nearly $4.30 a gallon in April, while diesel is expected to top $5.80 a gallon. (eia.gov) Higher fuel costs feed directly into freight, airline and shipping bills, and then into store prices. The International Energy Agency said its April 14 report extended supply-and-demand forecasts through 2027 as the market tracked disruptions, inventories and refining margins more closely than usual. (iea.org) The supply shock is landing in a market that was not growing quickly even before the latest disruption. The International Energy Agency said global oil demand growth in 2025 slowed to 0.65 million barrels a day, or 0.7%, after a 0.75 million barrel-a-day increase in 2024. (iea.org) That weaker demand backdrop is one reason official forecasts still show prices easing later this year if Gulf exports recover. The Energy Information Administration said it expects Brent to fall below $90 a barrel in the fourth quarter of 2026 and average $76 in 2027 under an assumption that the conflict does not persist past April. (eia.gov) For now, the market is trading the risk that even a temporary supply choke point can keep oil near $100. As long as Hormuz traffic and Gulf production remain uncertain, the price of a barrel is likely to stay tied to the next headline. (eia.gov)
