Where Will WTI Oil Price Land This Year?

The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) spot price will average $73.62 per barrel this year.

That’s according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest short term energy outlook (STEO), which was released earlier this month.

Broken down quarterly, the EIA’s May STEO sees the WTI spot price averaging $72.50 per barrel in the second quarter and $73 per barrel in both the third and fourth quarters of 2023.

In its previous STEO, which was released in April, the EIA saw the WTI spot price coming in at $79.24 per barrel in 2023. That STEO projected that the commodity would average $80 in the second quarter of this year, $81 per barrel in the third quarter, and $80 per barrel in the fourth quarter.

The WTI spot price averaged $94.91 per barrel in 2022, the EIA’s latest STEO highlighted.

According to a Standard Chartered report sent to Rigzone recently, WTI will average $88 per barrel this year. The report saw the commodity coming in at $85 per barrel in the third quarter of 2023 and $91 per barrel in the fourth quarter. Standard Chartered made the same price projections in a separate report sent to Rigzone last month.

Analysts at Standard Chartered noted in the company’s latest report that speculative shorts across the four main Brent and WTI contracts had risen by 90 million barrels and that speculative longs had been cut by 110 million barrels.

In another report sent to Rigzone this month, BMI, a Fitch Solutions company, revealed that it saw the WTI crude price averaging $81 per barrel in 2023. In a report sent to Rigzone at the end of March, Fitch Solutions Country Risk & Industry Research outlined that it saw the WTI crude price averaging $88 per barrel this year.

The average response from 145 oil and gas firm executives when asked what they expected the WTI price to be at the end of 2023, as part of the first quarter 2023 Dallas Fed Energy Survey, which was released back in March, was $79.64 per barrel.

The low forecast in that survey came to $50 per barrel, while the high forecast came in at $160 per barrel. The WTI price during the survey collection period, which spanned March 15-23, averaged $68.51 per barrel.

At the time of writing, WTI is trading at $71.92 per barrel. The commodity’s highest close in 2023, so far, was seen on January 26 at $87.47 per barrel, and its lowest close in 2023, so far, was seen on March 17 at $66.74 per barrel.

To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com