On April 2, 2025, after US President Trump announced the implementation of a “reciprocal tariff” policy on major economies around the world. The price of Brent crude oil plunged by 9.7%, hitting a four-year low of $63.58 per barrel.
Meanwhile, the Opec + alliance led by Saudi Arabia and Russia announced that it would expand the production increase to 411,000 barrels per day, far exceeding the original plan of 138,000 barrels per day, causing a complete collapse of market confidence.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has lowered its forecast for the growth rate of global crude oil demand in 2025 from 1.5% to 0.3%.
Goldman Sachs analysts recently released a report, stating that the prices of Brent crude oil and US WTI crude oil will fall to $63 and $59 per barrel respectively for the remainder of 2025, and will further decline to $58 and $55 per barrel in 2026.
The Wall Street bank said that in the context of a global economic slowdown and the complete reversal of the voluntary production cut of 2.2 million barrels per day by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (Opec +), the price of Brent crude oil could fall to the $40 range in 2026, and in extreme cases, it might even fall below $40.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced earlier this month that it had lowered its oil price forecast from $74 per barrel of Brent crude oil in March to $68 per barrel in April.
The EIA predicts that as OPEC+ accelerates its planned production increase, the output of oil in the United States and globally will continue to grow in 2025. Global oil inventories are expected to increase starting from the middle of this year. However, the uncertainty of economic growth may curb the growth of demand for petroleum products, which may be lower than the previous forecast.
In its April report, the EIA stated: “The combination of supply growth and demand decline has led the EIA to predict that the average price of Brent crude oil will be below $70 per barrel in 2025 and fall to just over $60 per barrel by 2026.”
The International Energy Agency (IEA) pointed out in its natural gas market report released in the first quarter that although Russia’s cessation of pipeline natural gas transportation through Ukraine on January 1, 2025 does not pose an imminent supply security risk to the EU, it may increase the import demand for liquefied natural gas and tighten market fundamentals in 2025.
However, the IEA predicts that the growth of global natural gas demand will slow down to below 2% in 2025, and the growth will mainly be driven by Asia, which is expected to account for nearly 45% of the incremental natural gas demand.
The organization predicts that the average price of natural gas will reach $4.30 in 2025 and $4.60 in 2026.
