Global Oil Price Benchmark Brent to Average $75 in 2022, Up $4 From Last Year - EIA

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th January, 2022) Global crude oil prices, as indicated by the London-traded benchmark Brent, are expected to average $75 per barrel this year, up $4 from 2021 levels, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Tuesday.

"Brent crude oil spot prices averaged $71 per barrel in 2021, and we forecast Brent prices will average $75/b in 2022," the EIA said in its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook for January. It, however, lowered that forecast to $68 for 2023.

Brent hovered near a two-month high at just under $84 a barrel in Tuesday's trade, rallying almost 4% on the day on tight supply concerns and also in response to the EIA forecast.

Since the start of the year, Brent has risen almost 8%, after gaining 51% for all of 2021.

Brent aside, the EIA forecast that US crude's West Texas Intermediate (WTI) benchmark will rise from last year's average of $68.21 per barrel to $71.32 this year, before climbing back down to $63.50 in 2023.

The rally in oil comes on the back of production cuts by global producers responding to the demand destruction for fuels seen at the height of the coronavirus pandemic that sent WTI to a historic negative pricing of minus $40 per barrel in April 2020 and Brent to below $16.

Oil producers under the OPEC+ alliance are still withholding some four million barrels of daily supply from the market from some 10 million barrels of cuts they began with in May 2020.