Brent Crude Rebounds to $90.69 Settlement as Hormuz Flows Hit 15 Million bpd; Goldman Sachs Q4 Cap at $80 Would Cost Alberta Producers $15 CAD Per Barrel

Brent crude settled at $90.69 per barrel on Monday's ICE close, up 2.93% from Friday's session. WTI crude settled at $85.54 per barrel on the CME, a gain of 2.57%. Both benchmarks recovered from Friday's Brent selloff to $89.31, which came as Persian Gulf exports tripled to 15 million barrels per day.

Hormuz Flows at 15 Million bpd, Still 7 Million Below Pre-War Levels

Goldman Sachs analysts Daan Struyven and Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby published a note in the week of August 28 examining the mechanics of that export recovery. At the March conflict low, Hormuz throughput fell to 5 to 6 million barrels per day from a pre-war 22 to 24 million. By the end of August, flows had recovered to 15 to 16 million barrels per day. That leaves a shortfall of 7 to 8 million barrels per day relative to pre-war volumes. Goldman attributed much of the recovery to dark crossings by specialized shippers and ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman, workarounds that limit the marginal upside from any further tanker traffic disruption.

Goldman Caps Q4 at $80; RBC Holds at $85

Goldman Sachs now projects Brent averaging $80 per barrel in Q4 2026, down from a prior $90 forecast, per CNBC. The bank argues the Hormuz recovery caps the war-risk premium. RBC Capital Markets takes a higher base view, projecting Brent at $85 per barrel for full-year 2026 and forecasting the benchmark stays above $75 per barrel through 2027, per Exchange Rates UK. Goldman and RBC disagree by $5 to $10 per barrel on where the ceiling sits.

Goldman presented two tail scenarios in its August note. If Hormuz remains disrupted through 2027, Brent could exceed $130 per barrel in late 2026. If the export recovery arrives faster than expected, Brent could fall below $70 per barrel by Q4 2026 and below $60 in 2027. Neither tail is Goldman's base case, but the $60-plus range between them reflects how much geopolitical optionality remains priced into today's $90.69 settlement.

WCS Revenue Gap: Roughly $15 CAD Per Barrel at Goldman's Q4 Target

Western Canadian Select crude traded at approximately $74.50 per barrel on Monday, implying an $11.04 per barrel discount to WTI based on today's CME settlement. The Canadian dollar settled at 1.3855 per US dollar on August 31, per Federal Reserve H.10 data. At those rates, Alberta producers received roughly CAD $103.20 per WCS barrel.

If Goldman's Q4 Brent target of $80 per barrel materializes, WTI would fall to approximately $74.85 per barrel, using today's $5.15 Brent-WTI spread. Applying the current $11.04 WCS-WTI differential gives approximately $63.81 per barrel in US dollar terms. At the August 31 exchange rate, that translates to CAD $88.41 per barrel. The gap between today's CAD $103.20 and Goldman's Q4 implied WCS price is roughly CAD $14.79 per barrel. Trans Mountain carried 840,000 barrels per day in Q2 2026, running at 94% of its 890,000 barrel-per-day capacity, per BNN Bloomberg. Across that shipment volume, the CAD $14.79 per barrel difference represents approximately CAD $12.4 million per day in aggregate revenue exposure for Alberta crude shippers.

Suncor Energy, Canadian Natural Resources, and Cenovus Energy are among the largest WCS-linked producers shipping through Trans Mountain. A weaker Canadian dollar typically offsets some of the crude price impact in CAD terms, since the two often move inversely when oil falls. At today's 1.3855 rate, that partial offset is already reflected; any Canadian dollar appreciation as the US dollar weakens would reduce it.

Trans Mountain Running Near Full as Alberta Crude Access Expands

Trans Mountain ran at 94% of capacity in Q2 2026, carrying an average of 840,000 barrels per day, up from 703,000 barrels in the same quarter of 2025, per BNN Bloomberg. By late August, the system had hit or exceeded its 890,000 barrel-per-day nameplate capacity. That full-capacity status narrows the structural WCS-WTI differential compared to the pre-expansion era, when pipeline bottlenecks pushed the discount to $20 per barrel or wider. The Oil Sands Alliance MOU with Ottawa and Alberta could further expand egress over the next decade, but no final investment decision on additional capacity has been announced.