Oil Price Forecast: WTI $57.32, Brent $60.75 as OPEC+ Holds Supply

Oil Prices Today: WTI $57.32 and Brent $60.75 Are Trading Like a Surplus Market

The tape is refusing to pay for fear

WTI (CL=F) at $57.32 and Brent (BZ=F) at $60.75 are signaling one thing: the market sees enough barrels available to cap rallies. Murban at $61.19 and the OPEC Basket at $61.22 sit right on top of Brent, confirming the benchmark is not short of supply. The wider slate matters because it shows where the stress is and where it isn’t: Louisiana Light is $59.24 while Mars US prints $70.06 and Bonny Light $78.62, which reads as regional tightness and grade-specific premia—not a global scramble for crude. Gasoline at $1.698 supports the idea that demand isn’t ripping hard enough to force crude higher.

What 2025 did to the curve still dominates 2026 pricing psychology

Crude finished 2025 with a sharp drawdown (your feed notes oil fell more than 18% in 2025). That matters because markets don’t reset sentiment overnight after a year defined by “too much supply.” The Venezuela headlines arrived into a market already trained to sell rallies. That’s why price is still sitting near the high-$50s/low-$60s instead of reacting like a shortage story.

The immediate battlefield is simple: $57 WTI and $60 Brent are the “do we break lower?” zones

At these prints, the market is effectively testing whether the marginal barrel clears. If the news flow can’t lift WTI off $57 even with geopolitical noise, the downside pressure stays intact. If WTI starts printing and holding above the upper end of the day range ($315.60 equivalent doesn’t apply here; for oil you gave only spot quotes), the next move requires a catalyst stronger than headlines—actual flow disruption or a demand shock.

Natural gas weakness adds another “energy complex is not tight” signal

Natural gas at $3.618 (down 1.84%) matters because it reinforces the broader energy complex tone: investors are not pricing an across-the-board scarcity problem right now. That doesn’t set crude by itself, but it removes one supportive narrative that often helps oil sustain risk premia.

OPEC+ is choosing defense: holding output steady through Q1 2026

OPEC+ reaffirmed that it will keep production steady through the first quarter and keep the pause on planned February–March 2026 increases. That is not a bullish “tighten the screws” decision; it’s a “don’t flood a soft market” decision. When a producer group pauses hikes, it’s admitting the market can’t absorb more barrels cleanly at current prices without breaking.

The real OPEC+ weapon is optionality, not the press release

Two supply levers hang over the market and suppress the upside premium: 1.65 million bpd of voluntary cuts that can be returned gradually, plus the additional 2.2 million bpd voluntary cut layer referenced in the policy framework. When traders believe OPEC+ can add barrels back, every rally has to justify why OPEC+ wouldn’t step in to defend market share or prevent an inflationary spike.

Compliance enforcement is a hidden support, but it’s not a rally trigger

OPEC+ reiterated full conformity and compensation for overproduction since January 2024, monitored by the JMMC. That helps stabilize downside tail risk because it reduces “cheating-led oversupply.” But it doesn’t create upside unless demand starts pulling harder than expected.

Venezuela is a headline shock, not a prompt-barrel shock

The key number is massive: 303 billion barrels of reserves. But flow matters more than geology. The reporting you provided is explicit: Venezuela is currently less than 1% of daily global production, and early indications were that infrastructure was not meaningfully impacted by the strikes. That is why the market reaction is muted—prompt supply hasn’t been removed.

If the US tries to “tap Venezuelan reserves,” the first-order price effect is bearish

Trump’s message about tapping Venezuelan reserves is not a scarcity narrative—it’s a “more barrels into a surplus” narrative. If production rises, it lands into a global system already expected to be long crude in 2026. That’s the catch-22: the more oil that gets added, the more prices get pressured, and the economics for the incremental barrel deteriorate.

Geopolitical risk is real, but the market is treating it as manageable

Your feed lists multiple geopolitical tension points (Venezuela, Saudi-UAE strains over Yemen, Russia-Ukraine uncertainty). The pricing response is still small because the market believes OPEC+ can manage supply, and because the Venezuela situation hasn’t translated into an immediate export outage. Geopolitics without missing barrels usually fades fast in crude.

Where the supply system actually looks heavy: the 2026 surplus narrative is dominating

One of the strongest signals in the coverage is the expectation that the global oil surplus reaches a record in 2026. In that setup, rallies need real, sustained disruptions, not just political shock. This is why WTI can sit near $57 even when the news cycle is loud.

Actionable price map: what would flip the bias bullish vs bearish

A bullish flip requires one of two things: a visible tightening in inventories and exports that persists, or a clear disruption large enough to overwhelm OPEC+ ability/willingness to add barrels back. Without that, the path of least resistance remains “sell strength” while the market respects the supply overhang.

Verdict: Bearish-to-Hold bias at WTI $57.32 and Brent $60.75

At these exact prices, the data you provided supports a bearish-to-hold stance: bearish because the market is pricing surplus risk and because additional Venezuelan supply (if pursued) is structurally negative; hold because OPEC+ policy discipline and optionality can slow a disorderly collapse. A clean bullish call needs evidence that barrels are disappearing from the market, not just appearing in headlines.

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