August Brent Consensus at $85 Trails Traded Price by $10 as Hormuz Disruptions Hold
A survey of 31 economists forecast 2026 Brent at $85.08, but the contract is trading near $96 with four months of the year remaining.
ICE Brent crude front-month was trading at $95.61 a barrel early on Wednesday (2026-09-02), up 3.83% on the session, leaving it more than $10 above the full-year 2026 average of $85.08 a barrel that an August survey of 31 economists and analysts forecast. With four months of 2026 still to price, that gap implies a substantial and sustained retreat that the survey's participants did not build into their estimates.6,4
The August survey moved almost nothing from July's figures. The prior month's poll had Brent at $85.22 and U.S. crude at $80.14; August produced $85.08 and $80.20. The near-stillness of those revisions looks striking given how far prices ran above the consensus through the summer. NYMEX WTI front-month stood at $90.70 on Wednesday (2026-09-02).6
The EIA gave the supply side of that equation a formal uplift in August. Its Short-Term Energy Outlook, released August 11 (2026-08-11), raised its third-quarter Brent forecast to $85 a barrel, directly citing severe constraints on transits through the Strait of Hormuz.4
A subsequent EIA note published August 26 (2026-08-26) held Q3 Brent at around $85 before pencilling in a sharper fall: $69 a barrel in 2027, as Middle East oil production recovers from conflict-linked disruption. The agency expects most regional output to return to near pre-conflict levels in early 2027, but sees residual disruptions of about 0.6 million barrels per day persisting through the end of next year.6
The scale of the physical supply shock beneath those numbers is visible in Deutsche Bank's analysis. The bank estimated that diversions and continued exports had reduced the effective supply disruption to around 12.6 million barrels per day, while the net supply-demand impact amounted to a drawdown of roughly 4 million barrels per day in global crude inventories. In May 2026, shipping volumes through the strait were running at just 6% of normal levels, the bank noted.1
Chinese demand added to the pressure earlier in the year. In early 2026, China imported a record 11.99 million barrels per day — nearly 16% above comparable prior-period volumes, according to analysis published May 12 (2026-05-12) — before the Hormuz disruption compounded the supply picture. The country's appetite had been a primary driver of bullish positioning in options markets before the geopolitical shock added a second layer.2
Morgan Stanley moved in a different direction. The bank cut its Brent price forecast for the rest of 2026 and into 2027, citing recovering Hormuz flows and flagging the prospect of a supply surplus next year. Before the conflict, Morgan Stanley's balances had pointed to a 2 million to 3 million barrel-per-day surplus in 2026, before the strait closure briefly reversed that calculus.3
US production growth supports that more cautious view. The EIA projects domestic crude output to rise from 13.8 million barrels per day in 2026 to 14.2 million barrels per day in 2027, incremental supply that would amplify any demand-side softening in the months ahead.6
That demand concern surfaced explicitly on August 13 (2026-08-13), when the International Energy Agency projected a decline in demand later in the year. Brent fell 45 cents that day to $88.53 a barrel, according to UPI, before subsequent sessions pushed it well above those levels.5
The $85.08 annual average forecast can still prove correct if the IEA's demand scenario materialises and Hormuz flows recover faster than the EIA projects. But the same agency that put Q3 Brent at $85 also expects partial disruption to persist well into 2027 — and with prices trading near $96 at the start of September (2026-09-02), the arithmetic of returning to an $85 full-year average is becoming considerably harder to run.6,4