Domestic oil production is forecast to drop more than previously expected in 2026 as average global prices sink to levels not seen since the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Tuesday.
The price for a barrel of benchmark Brent crude could fall from an average of $71 a barrel last month to $58 a barrel by the fourth quarter to around $50 a barrel early next year, EIA officials wrote in the agency’s August Short-Term Energy Outlook.
By 2026, the agency said Tuesday in a release, U.S. producers could “pull back” on new production, shrinking output by an estimated 100,000 barrels a day on an average annual basis from 2025 to 2026.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty in the petroleum market,” acting EIA Administrator Stephen Nalley said in a statement. “In the past, we have seen significant drops in oil price when inventories grow as quickly as we are expecting in the coming months.”
