BofA called oil at $90 the best scenario for the market. In another scenario, prices will rise to $130

Brent oil in the most optimistic scenario will cost $90 per barrel in the remaining half of 2026, according to the head of research commodity markets Bank of America Francisco Blanche. At the same time, he described a scenario in which quotes rise about halfway above this level - and it is not the worst yet.

There are three possible scenarios for the oil market, Blanche told Bloomberg TV on May 18.

In the best-case scenario, Brent will be around $90 by the end of the year.

However, the cost of raw materials may rise to $120-130 per barrel by the end of June - early July, if the double blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by the U.S. and Iran continues, the analyst warned.

The most negative option Blanche called the resumption of hostilities between the two countries. According to him, new strikes on oil infrastructure can permanently limit the supply on the market even after the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. BofA analyst did not provide a price benchmark in this case.

The global energy market is now short of about 14-15 million barrels of oil per day - about 15% of the volume needed to stabilize prices and return Brent to the $60-70 per barrel range, Blanche notes. The actual closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which before the war passed about a fifth of the world's oil supplies, especially painfully affects the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, but the pressure is felt by consumers and industry around the world, says the Bank of America analyst.

Blanch's comments came shortly after Iran's Tasnim news agency reported, citing a source close to the Iranian delegation in talks with the United States, that Washington had allegedly offered a temporary easing of oil sanctions on Tehran.

The U.S. has not confirmed it, but such a development would remove a key Iranian demand for a peace deal and the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, Bloomberg writes. Resuming oil shipments through it is the best possible outcome, Blanche argues.

Since the beginning of the year, Brent has risen in price by about 50%, at trading on May 18, it at one point rose above $112 per barrel, but then lost all the gained: it fell below $109 per barrel and became cheaper by 0.3%. The occasion was US President Donald Trump's announcement that he would postpone "tomorrow's planned" strike on Iran at the request of a number of Middle Eastern leaders.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor