Since the U.S.-Iran conflict began, oil prices have risen sharply, and it remains unclear when that trend could change.
On Wednesday, March 11, the International Energy Agency’s 32 members unanimously agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from emergency resources – the agency’s largest oil stock release ever.
Additionally, this was only the sixth stock release since the agency’s formation in 1974.
Fuel reports released on March 11 showed substantial increases in all regions and in the national average compared to the previous day.
Updated fuel prices and a fuel surcharge calculator are available on this Land Line resources page.
The Energy Information Administration’s March short-term energy outlook said the Brent crude oil spot price was up approximately 50% from the beginning of 2026 on Monday, March 9. That $ 94-per-barrel average was the highest since September 2023.
For the next two months, EIA expects Brent crude oil prices to remain above $95 per barrel before falling below $80 per barrel in the third quarter of this year.
“This price forecast is highly dependent on our modeled assumptions of both the duration of conflict in the Middle East and resulting outages in oil production,” EIA said.
Higher oil prices will lead to more U.S. crude oil production, averaging 13.8 million barrels per day in 2027, according to the EIA outlook.
Natural gas prices in the U.S. have not been affected as much as in Europe and Asia. EIA expects this to continue as natural gas production rises.
“We make the assumption in our modeling that the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz will cause oil production in the Middle East to fall further in the coming weeks,” EIA said. “We assume this shut-in production will gradually ease as transit through the Strait resumes.”
The current STEO forecast was released March 10. The previous STEO forecast was released Feb. 10. LL
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