Brent crude will trade between $55 and $65 a barrel for most of 2017-21, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said yesterday.
Opec’s oil output deal will nudge prices up next year, but the proposed reduction is too small to restore the glory days of early 2014, according to EIU, which is the research and analysis division of the Economist Group.
In its latest global forecast for 2016-21, EIU said the benefits of the Opec deal would be offset by “cheating” among member states and higher non-Opec production.
But it said steady demand from emerging markets and producer restraint would help “put a floor under prices”.
EIU said Brent would average $57 next year and $61 in 2018.
However, it said growth would slacken as the OPEC deal “unravels”.
It also predicted that Chinese economic growth would slow sharply in 2018, and that the US would fall into recession the following year.
It means prices will not rise much higher than $61 in 2019 and 2020, but will edge up to $64 in 2021.