Brent Settles at $109.86, Highest Since May, as EIA Sees $105 and Goldman Targets $90 for December

Brent crude futures settled at $109.86 per barrel on ICE on Friday, October 16, up $3.94 or 3.7% on the day and 4.9% on the week. That is the highest Brent settle since May 19, per Reuters-based reports compiled by FinanceFeeds. WTI settled at $101.41 per barrel on Nymex, up $3.44 or 3.5%, for a weekly gain of 10.4%. Futures are closed for the weekend, so Friday's settlements are the latest verified prices.

What drove the Friday jump

A Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted a ballistic missile aimed at Yanbu, the Red Sea end of the East-West pipeline, as we detailed in our Yanbu coverage. A Ukrainian drone strike also shut a main unit at a large Russian refinery, per Reuters reports carried by FinanceFeeds, which did not name the plant. We could not confirm which refinery from the sources we reviewed.

US commercial crude stocks fell 8.557 million barrels to 415.577 million in the week ended October 9, the largest draw since February, per EIA data cited by Trading Economics. Kpler data show Hormuz clearances averaged 11.62 million barrels per day in the week through October 13, against a 17.15 million baseline. The Department of Energy also issued a request for proposals on Friday to exchange up to 17 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, per OilPrice.com.

The WTI discount narrowed by about a third

Friday's Brent-WTI spread stood at $8.45 per barrel. Backing out the weekly percentage moves implies prior-week settles of $104.72 for Brent and $91.86 for WTI, a spread of $12.86. The discount therefore narrowed by $4.41 in five sessions. The percentages are rounded, so treat the earlier figures as implied, not reported.

WTI gained more than twice as much as Brent on the week. The EIA draw and the new SPR exchange offer both concern US barrels, which is consistent with US crude catching up to the seaborne benchmark. Our calculation, not a figure from the source reports.

EIA and Goldman disagree on how long $100 lasts

The EIA's October Short-Term Energy Outlook forecasts Brent at $105 per barrel in the fourth quarter, $14 above its September forecast. It sees a 2027 average of $84, up from a prior $74 and below a 2026 average of $96. The forecast assumes Middle East shut-ins average 4.5 million barrels per day this quarter, per the EIA.

Goldman Sachs raised its December Brent target to $90 from $85 on October 12, citing persistent supply risks from the West Asia conflict, per the Free Press Journal. The bank estimates the risk premium exceeds $20 per barrel and kept its 2027 Brent forecast at $80. We covered the split with BMI in our Goldman versus BMI analysis.

Measured against Friday's $109.86 settle, Goldman's December target implies a drop of $19.86 or 18.1%. The EIA's fourth-quarter average implies a drop of $4.86 or 4.4%. The two forecasts are $15 apart for late 2026 but only $4 apart for 2027, at $84 versus $80. The EIA figure is a quarterly average and the Goldman figure is a December point estimate, so the gap overstates the disagreement somewhat.

Archive context: SPR demand is the open question

Friday's settle sits $3.94 above Thursday's $105.92, per Yahoo Finance data cited by FinanceFeeds, and well above the $90 Goldman target. The DOE met little appetite for SPR barrels: only about 500,000 barrels were taken in the June exchange, per our SPR exchange report.

Data and events to watch

The EIA weekly petroleum status report lands Wednesday, October 21, and will show whether the crude draw continues. Baker Hughes publishes its rig count Friday. The Federal Reserve meets October 27 and 28. Traders will also watch whether the Yanbu threat repeats when futures reopen Sunday evening.