Goldman's $82 Q3 Brent Target Sits $12 Below Thursday's Settlement as Rystad Sets Full-Year Average at $87

Brent crude settled at $94.41 per barrel on Thursday's ICE close, down 3.47% from Wednesday's $97.81, as improving ceasefire signals on the Strait of Hormuz reduced the conflict-driven risk premium. Goldman Sachs holds a Q3 Brent base case of $82 per barrel and a Q4 base case of $90, both below Thursday's level. Rystad Energy's full-year 2026 average forecast of $87 per barrel requires the second half to average well below the current settlement.

Goldman's Quarter-by-Quarter Forecast

Goldman Sachs raised its Q4 2026 Brent forecast to $90 per barrel and its Q4 WTI forecast to $83 per barrel in a late-April note, lifting both from prior estimates of $83 and $78 respectively. The bank's Q3 2026 Brent base case sits at $82 per barrel. Andrew Tilton, Goldman's chief Asia-Pacific economist, stated the firm holds a $90 per barrel year-end target for Brent, conditional on full Hormuz reopening. Goldman's base case assumes 21 days of low Hormuz flows at 10% of normal capacity, followed by a 30-day gradual recovery. In a severe scenario where the ceasefire collapses and Middle East production losses persist near 2 million barrels per day, Goldman targets Q4 Brent at $115 per barrel.

Rystad Cuts Full-Year Average to $87

Rystad Energy reduced its 2026 average Brent price forecast to $87 per barrel from $97, citing its reading of Hormuz shipping conditions as a partial recovery rather than a structural reopening. Janiv Shah, Rystad's Vice President of Commodity Markets, stated: "What is being observed is not a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz but rather a formalization of existing conditions." New crude loadings still face voyage times of three to six weeks before reaching Asian discharge ports, meaning physical supply relief lags any diplomatic announcement by over a month. At Thursday's $94.41 settlement, Brent sits $7.41 above Rystad's full-year target, requiring the remainder of 2026 to average well below today's level.

Wood Mackenzie on Multi-Month Supply Chain Lag

Wood Mackenzie has stated that Middle Eastern energy supply chains could require months to normalize following any formal Hormuz reopening. That timeline analysis supports Goldman's reasoning for maintaining a structural floor near $90 in its base ceasefire case. Goldman, Rystad, and Wood Mackenzie all project downside from Thursday's $94.41. Their disagreement is on depth and speed.

The $25 Scenario Gap and WCS Implications

Goldman's Q4 2026 Brent range spans $25 per barrel: a base case of $90 and a severe disruption case of $115. The bank's Q3 trough of $82 sets the deepest near-term floor. For operators selling Western Canadian Select, which narrowed to $8.61 below WTI on Thursday per earlier WCS-WTI pricing coverage, all three Goldman targets carry direct cash-flow consequences.

With Thursday's WTI at $93.04 per OilPrice.com data and the WCS-WTI differential at $8.61, WCS traded at $84.43 per barrel. At Goldman's Q4 WTI base of $83, WCS would settle at $74.39, a decline of $10.04 per barrel from Thursday's level. Suncor and Imperial Oil, the ExxonMobil subsidiary that operates Kearl and Cold Lake, price their bitumen and synthetic crude largely against WCS benchmarks. Alberta produced close to 3.6 million barrels per day of raw bitumen in 2024, per the Alberta Energy Regulator's ST98 statistical report. A $10.04 per barrel shift across that output equals $36.1 million per day, or $13.2 billion annualized for the provincial heavy oil sector.

Two Sessions From $97 to a $4.41 Gap With Goldman's Target

Two trading sessions ago, as Oil Authority reported on June 2, Brent traded at $97.81, sitting $7.81 above Goldman's Q4 target of $90. Thursday's ceasefire signal has narrowed that gap to $4.41 in two sessions. Goldman's Q3 floor of $82 now sits $12.41 below Thursday's close, a gap the physical market could close within a single quarter if diplomatic progress continues to outpace the supply chain recovery timeline that Wood Mackenzie describes.