https://www.instagram.com/vanessaclarkipaiThis is your Daily Crude Oil Price Tracker with Vanessa Clark podcast.Good evening and welcome to Daily Crude Oil Price Tracker. I'm Vanessa Clark, and today we're diving into one of the most dramatic shifts in the oil market in recent months. If you've been paying attention to the news, you know that crude oil prices have been on quite the rollercoaster, and there's a really important story driving everything right now.Let me start with the current numbers because they tell the story. As of early March, West Texas Intermediate crude oil, or WTI as traders call it, is trading at seventy-six dollars and twenty-nine cents per barrel. Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, is sitting at eighty-two dollars and thirty-one cents per barrel. Now, if those numbers sound high to you, you're right to notice. Both benchmarks have jumped approximately thirty-two to thirty-six percent year to date after spending most of twenty twenty-five under pressure.So what's driving this surge? The answer is one of the world's most critical chokepoints for global energy: the Strait of Hormuz. Following US-Israeli military strikes on Iran, Iran has effectively closed this waterway to shipping. Here's why that matters to you. About twenty percent of all global oil demand flows through the Strait of Hormuz. When that passage closes, supply concerns spike immediately, and prices shoot higher.Goldman Sachs, one of the world's largest investment banks, estimates that there's currently an eighteen dollar per barrel geopolitical risk premium built into current prices. That's a huge number. Standard Chartered Bank recently raised its first quarter forecast to seventy-four dollars per barrel, while Goldman Sachs lifted its second quarter target to seventy-six dollars for Brent crude.But here's the counterbalance. OPEC and Russia, through OPEC Plus, have agreed to add two hundred six thousand barrels per day of supply starting in April twenty twenty-six. If the Strait of Hormuz reopens faster than expected, that additional supply could actually push prices back down. The US Energy Information Administration is projecting that Brent will average fifty-seven dollars and sixty-nine cents for the full year twenty twenty-six, which is significantly lower than current levels.So here's what you need to know. The oil market is incredibly volatile right now because traders are essentially betting on two completely opposite scenarios simultaneously. Either the Middle East situation escalates and disrupts supply for longer, or it stabilizes quickly and additional OPEC supply floods the market.Technical analysts note that both WTI and Brent are showing stretched momentum indicators, which means prices could be vulnerable to a pullback, but the underlying trend remains solidly higher.For anyone watching energy stocks, alternative energy investments, or just trying to understand what's happening in your wallet at the pump, these dynamics matter. The range of forecasts for the year spans from fifty-eight dollars all the way to seventy-six dollars per barrel for Brent, so uncertainty is high.That's your crude oil update for today. Thanks so much for tuning in to Daily Crude Oil Price Tracker. Please be sure to subscribe and join us next time when we continue tracking these critical energy markets. I'm Vanessa Clark, and we'll catch you soon.For more http://www.quietplease.aiCheck out Vanessa on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/vanessaclarkipaiFor some deals, check out https://amzn.to/4hSgB4rThis content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

Related