The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) revised up its 2022 forecast for global Brent crude oil prices on Tuesday, citing 鈥渉eightened uncertainty鈥� resulting from various factors.
In the August Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the EIA revised up the price of Brent crude for 2022 to an average of $104.78 per barrel and American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) to $98.71 a barrel in 2022. These figures were $104.05 and $98.79, respectively in last month's report.
The agency predicts that Brent will decline to $95.13 per barrel next year while WTI will fall to $89.13 a barrel.
The EIA cautioned that the price forecast is "highly uncertain," driven by a range of factors including the Russia-Ukraine war, the extent to which EU sanctions will affect Russia鈥檚 oil production, and the production decisions of OPEC+ along with the growth rate of US oil and natural gas production.
-US crude oil production increases
Crude oil output in the US is forecast to average 11.86 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2022, up from 11.2 million bpd in 2021.
In 2023, crude oil output in the country is expected to reach 12.7 million bpd.
The agency forecast that OPEC crude oil production will average 28.47 million bpd in 2022 and 29.04 million bpd in 2023.
By Sibel Morrow
Anadolu Agency