Brent crude traded at $115.29 per barrel on Wednesday, April 29, 2026, up 3.62% on the session and rising for the seventh consecutive day, the longest winning streak of the year and the highest closing level for the European benchmark since June 2022.

The June 2026 contract has now gained more than 88% over the past 12 months, lifted by the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the ninth week of US-Iran conflict, and Tuesday's surprise announcement that the United Arab Emirates will leave OPEC and OPEC+ on May 1.

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The catalysts now compete with each other. Goldman Sachs upgraded its Q4 2026 Brent forecast to $90 from $80 on April 26, the fourth upward revision since the war began. JPMorgan continues to flag a $150 overshoot if Hormuz disruption extends. Both projections sit above the futures curve, which still prices a Q3 reversion below $90.

Why Is Oil Rising? Brent Tests Highest Level Since June 2022

Brent's seventh straight gain pushed the contract through the $113 level, a zone that has capped every rally since March, and into the $115 to $117 band last seen during the June 2022 Russia-Ukraine spike. Iraqi, Saudi, and Emirati production remains shut in at roughly 9.1 million barrels per day in April, according to the EIA, the largest physical disruption in the modern history of the global crude market.

The dollar has not suppressed prices the way it usually does. Treasury yields are rising, the dollar index is steady, and oil is climbing anyway, a configuration that signals supply is the dominant variable.

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Refining margins validate the squeeze. The distillate crack spread at New York Harbor averaged $1.42 per gallon in March, the highest monthly print since 2022, while US retail gasoline prices have climbed to the highest level in nearly four years.

The structural drivers now in play:

• Strait of Hormuz effectively closed since February 28, removing roughly 20% of seaborne oil supply
• 9.1 million b/d of Persian Gulf production shut in for April per EIA
• UAE exit from OPEC effective May 1 fragments the cartel's pricing power
• 9.6 mb/d global deficit in Q2 2026 in Goldman's revised supply-demand model

UAE Leaves OPEC: A Structural Blow to Coordinated Supply

The UAE's announcement that it will exit both OPEC and OPEC+ on May 1, after 59 years of membership, marks the largest fracture in the cartel since Qatar's departure in 2019. The UAE is OPEC's third-largest producer behind Saudi Arabia and Iraq, with installed capacity near 4.8 million barrels per day and the operational flexibility to bring barrels online faster than any other member.

Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group, called the move a removal of a core pillar of oil market stability. "The UAE is not a marginal player. It's one of the very few producers with both meaningful spare capacity and the operational flexibility to bring barrels online quickly, which has been critical to how Opec has managed supply and influenced pricing," Green said.

The market reaction has been more measured than the headline suggests. "Markets are already looking beyond the headlines to what this means for future supply. There's no immediate loss of barrels, so the move reflects uncertainty pricing rather than a genuine supply shock," Green added.

The longer-term read is more concerning. Rystad Energy framed the UAE departure as a permanent structural weakening of the group, consistent with the conclusion in my April 7 oil price analysis that the post-war oil regime would not look like the pre-war one.

Strait of Hormuz: Where the Physical Crisis Actually Lives

Futures prices understate the dislocation in the cash market. Linh Tran, Market Analyst at XS.com, anchored the supply-side framing in comments to FinanceMagnates.com.

"WTI's return to the $100 per barrel level once again signals a clear shift in market structure. The primary driver is not a surge in demand, but rather supply-side dynamics, as geopolitical factors are now directly impacting physical oil flows," Tran said. She estimated that 10 to 13 million barrels per day are now affected by the Hormuz bottleneck, sufficient to push the market from balance into a structurally tight environment.

Tran framed the consequence in trader terms: "The market is no longer simply pricing in risk, but rather a prolonged period of supply disruption."

The futures-cash gap is now extreme. Arlan Suderman, Chief Commodities Economist at StoneX, said cash prices in Asia and parts of Europe have at times exceeded levels more than 50% higher than where Brent futures are trading.

"The futures market does not reflect the reality of the cash market, especially in Asia and parts of Europe, where actual shortages continue to mount," Suderman said.

He added that rising energy prices are already feeding through to "elevated inflation pressures going forward, leading to rising Treasury yields," a chain that my March Hormuz analysis flagged early.

Brent Crude Technical Analysis: $115 Is the Line

In 15 years analyzing markets, I've only seen Brent close above $115 in three prior episodes: the 2008 super-spike, the 2011 Libya supply shutdown, and the first weeks of the 2022 Ukraine war. This is the fourth.

My chart shows Brent has been consolidating for the past month and a half inside a wide $92 to $115 range. The lower bound at $92 to $94 is reinforced by the September 2023 and April 2024 peaks and the 50-day exponential moving average.

The upper bound at $113 to $115 marks both the local highs from March 2026 and the resistance zone established during the June 2022 cycle peak. Today's session is testing that ceiling.

A weekly close above $115 opens the path toward $125, the June 2022 swing high, with the $140 March 2022 peak as the next major resistance. A failure here, and a return inside the consolidation, points to $92 to $94 as the first downside target.

A breakdown below the 50 EMA would open the move toward $80, the January 2025 high, and ultimately $77, where the 200 MA currently sits and where the line between an uptrend and a downtrend lies.

The current price sits roughly 49% above the 200 MA, an unusually wide gap that typically resolves through either a sharp pullback or a multi-month grind sideways while the moving average catches up. Direction will be decided by Hormuz, not by chart patterns.

Oil Price Predictions 2026: How High Can Brent Go?

Institutional forecasts have moved up four times since the war began on February 28. The consensus is now firmly above $90 in the bull cases, but the divergence between base and risk scenarios is the widest since 2008.

JPMorgan's $150 call assumes Hormuz disruption extends into mid-May; my read is that this is no longer a tail scenario after the UAE exit reduced the probability of a coordinated production response. Goldman's $135 extreme assumes the market needs to force demand destruction, and the New York Harbor refining margin data suggests that response is already beginning.

Goldman's $90 base case looks too low if the UAE exit erodes coordinated discipline. My $115 chart level is a more realistic Q3 anchor. The EIA's $70 year-end target depends on a Hormuz reopening that the EIA itself now expects to be partial through late 2026.

The $200 Macquarie/Wood Mac scenario remains an extreme tail, with the FinanceMagnates.com prediction-market analysis showing traders assigning low odds even now.

Cross-asset spillover is already underway. As my Bitcoin Hormuz analysis noted, oil's grip on inflation expectations is reshaping the rate-cut path, while the gold-oil correlation that previously held has broken down.

FAQ, Oil Prices

Why is the price of oil rising in April 2026?

Brent crude trades above $115 on April 29, 2026, driven by the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz since February 28, 9.1 million barrels per day of shut-in Persian Gulf production per EIA, and the UAE's surprise announcement that it will leave OPEC on May 1, fragmenting the cartel's coordinated supply response.

How high can Brent crude go in 2026?

JPMorgan warns Brent could overshoot to $150 if Hormuz remains shut into mid-May. Goldman Sachs flagged $135 as an extreme demand-destruction peak and $115 to $120 as a Q4 risk scenario. Macquarie and Wood Mackenzie sketched $200 as a tail outcome. My TA targets $125 on a clean break above $115, with $140 as the major ceiling.

Will the UAE leaving OPEC make oil cheaper?

Not in the near term. The UAE has 4.8 million b/d of capacity and pushed for higher quotas inside OPEC. Solo production could eventually add supply, but with Hormuz closed it cannot reach global markets quickly. The structural read is a weaker, more fragmented OPEC, which lowers long-term price floors but raises short-term volatility Volatility In finance, volatility refers to the amount of change in the rate of a financial instrument, such as commodities, currencies, or stocks, over a given time period. Essentially, volatility describes the nature of an instrument’s fluctuation; a highly volatile security equates to large fluctuations in price, and a low volatile security equates to timid fluctuations in price. Volatility is an important statistical indicator used by financial traders to assist them in developing trading systems. Trad In finance, volatility refers to the amount of change in the rate of a financial instrument, such as commodities, currencies, or stocks, over a given time period. Essentially, volatility describes the nature of an instrument’s fluctuation; a highly volatile security equates to large fluctuations in price, and a low volatile security equates to timid fluctuations in price. Volatility is an important statistical indicator used by financial traders to assist them in developing trading systems. Trad Read this Term.

What does Goldman Sachs forecast for oil in 2026?

Goldman Sachs raised its Q4 2026 Brent forecast to $90 per barrel on April 26, the fourth upgrade since February. The bank's risk scenario sees $115 to $120 Brent in Q4 if Hormuz disruption extends, with an extreme peak at $135. Goldman now models a 9.6 million b/d global oil deficit in Q2 2026.

How does the oil price affect inflation and the Fed?

Sustained Brent above $100 per barrel feeds directly into refined product prices, with US average gasoline at the highest level in nearly four years. StoneX's Arlan Suderman warned that "rising energy prices suggest elevated inflation pressures going forward, leading to rising Treasury yields," limiting the Fed's flexibility to cut rates and pressuring risk assets.