Crude Oil 2026 Price Forecast – WTI Eyes Stabilization as Driving Season Begins

WTI Crude Oil Technical Analysis

To say the least, the light sweet crude oil market has been very noisy during the first half of the year, especially once the Americans attacked the Iranians. We have seen oil reach $120, and if you listened to a lot of pundits then, they were talking about $200 a barrel. Happens every time a market spikes like that; that’s your first sign that things are rolling over, and you should start thinking of the other side of the trade.

And that’s almost the situation we find ourselves in right now. We’re starting to see how oil is really coming undone as we enter July. We’re about to fill the gap from the reaction to the attack on Iran.

And I think we’ll have a tale of 2 markets here over the next 6 months. The first 3 months or so, which will still be summer, early fall, there is a high demand for crude oil, speaking generally in the United States, as it is what is sometimes called driving season. Vacations, that type of thing, kick off, and people tend to demand more crude via jets or cars.

Summer Driving Season and the Global Supply Chain

So, I think we’re getting to the realm of being oversold. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see this stabilize probably sometime mid-July. You’ll start to have traders look around and say, well, there is going to be demand.

I think $70 becomes a bit of a fulcrum. Now, the problem is you don’t really know where the bottom and the top will be in this range; that still remains to be seen. We will still have to sort that out.

That being said, I think there are some things that traders are not paying attention to right now, one of which, of course, is the fact that the supply chain has been obliterated for weeks upon weeks, and while there will be a flood of oil into the market, it will be a very lumpy recovery when it comes to supply.

The Upside is Still Possible

So, in other words, I do think that the risk is still to the upside. Now it won’t be like a reaction to the United States going to war with Iran, but I think we’re getting fairly close to a stabilization period and then eventually maybe a slightly bullish run towards the end of summer and fall. Wintertime, we probably settle into a sleepy range, as things stand right now. Again, I think $70 is a good fulcrum for price.

If we do start to fall apart towards the $55 level, the one scenario I see that actually happening is if there are serious concerns about an economic slowdown, because you would have concerns about the supply chain restabilizing itself, so it’s hard to imagine that suddenly they start trashing the oil market. If we start to see a lot of economic pain out there, you may see this fall apart, so my base case scenario is we are trying to stabilize now in the first month or so of the second half of the year. We might get a little bit of a bump as we find our range, and then in winter, just middle about.

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