While Wall Street is short on 2026 oil prices, OPEC is still adhering to the optimistic narrative of “steady growth in demand”

The Zhitong Finance App learned that the monthly report released by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC (OPEC) on Thursday showed that the broader “OPEC+ Organization of OPEC” slightly increased crude oil production in November. Eight OPEC+ member countries promoted a new round of production increase plans, while the organization maintained its forecast that crude oil demand will maintain a relatively strong growth rate next year. In contrast, Wall Street is generally pessimistic about the outlook for global crude oil demand in 2026, and it is expected that there will be a significant continuous oversupply of crude oil throughout the year.

According to the predicted average of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley, the Brent crude oil futures price, which currently trades around $61-62 per barrel, will drop further to about $59 in 2026. This year, this international benchmark price has dropped by nearly 20%.

OPEC (According to this newly released monthly report, OPEC+ organizations, including the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies such as Russia, produced 43.06 million barrels of crude oil per day in November, an increase of about 43,000 b/d over the previous month's actual production.

According to the OPEC report, the agency has no so-called “oversupply” expectations for the market supply and demand outlook, insisting that the market is “basically balanced” and that demand is growing steadily. OPEC predicts that the global market demand for OPEC+ crude oil will reach an average of 42.6 million b/d in the first quarter of 2026, and the average demand for the full year of 2026 is expected to be about 43 million b/d.

OPEC also maintained its forecast for the growth of global crude oil demand in 2025 and 2026, and indicated that the world economy is still on a steady crude oil demand trajectory.

The average forecast of the five major Wall Street commercial banks, including Goldman Sachs, shows that since actual global production will far exceed demand growth in 2026, the global oil market will face an excess of about 2.2 million b/d next year. Goldman Sachs (Goldman Sachs) expects the average price of Brent crude oil futures in 2026 to be around 56 US dollars/barrel, and WTI crude oil futures about 52 US dollars/barrel, which is significantly lower than the current level.

Analysts at J.P. Morgan Chase recently said in a report that the average price of Brent crude oil is expected to be between $57 and $58 per barrel in 2026 and 2027, and unless OPEC+ OPEC starts implementing large-scale production cuts, oil prices may drop to around $30 per barrel. They expect that starting in June 2026, the global oil market will need to cut production by about 2 million barrels per day.

The surpluses predicted by these banks are lower than the latest estimates of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the energy advisory body for the world's major economies. The IEA expects a record surplus of nearly 4 million b/d, but the IEA also believes that oil producer countries' adjustments may curb the scale of the excess.

Based on the improved macroeconomic outlook and “tariff-related concerns have basically subsided,” the IEA simultaneously raised the global crude oil demand growth forecast slightly for this year and next two years. The agency pointed out that due to the impact of sanctions against Russia and Venezuela on exports, the increase in global crude oil supply in 2025-2026 will be slightly lower than previously anticipated, but overall there is still a clear trend of oversupply.

The IEA expects global oil supply to increase by 2.4 million barrels per day next year, and previously predicted an increase of 2.5 million barrels per day. The report shows that due to significant declines in crude oil production in sanctioned Russia and Venezuela, global crude oil supply fell by 610,000 barrels per day in November. The IEA mentioned that Russian crude oil export revenue fell to its lowest level in November since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict fully broke out in 2022.