Citi upgrades near-term Brent outlook to $70/bbl on rising geopolitical risks in Oil & Companies News 16/01/2026 Citi has upgraded its near-term crude outlook, lifting its 0–3 month price target to $70 a barrel from $65 as rising geopolitical risks add to near-term upside pressures in the oil market. “We now think this oil rally has room to extend above our $55-65/bbl forecast range in the coming days,” Citi analysts led by Francesco Martoccia said in a note, pointing to higher supply disruption risks linked to Iran and Russia/Ukraine. The revision comes after Brent rose from around $60–61 a barrel last week to the mid-$60s. Analysts said the move reflects an expanding geopolitical risk premium, particularly as tensions around Iran intensify. The team noted that during the Iran-Israel attacks in mid-2025, Brent rallied from the low $60s to $77 a barrel, adding that “this time Iran is under even more pressure than it was then.” “Of course, oil balances are looser than they were then, and our baseline view is that spikes would provide room for producer hedging, since President Trump wants lower oil prices, and OPEC+ can still raise supply from 2Q’26 if sizeable disruptions occur,” they added. Iran’s crude oil and condensate production and exports are estimated at about 3.9 million barrels per day and 1.3 million barrels per day, respectively. But while demonstrations have intensified since late December, unrest has so far remained largely decoupled from Iran’s core upstream oil regions, including Khuzestan, which accounts for roughly 2.5–3.0 million barrels per day of capacity. This “reduces the risk of near-term physical supply disruption,” the analysts said. “As a result, current risks are skewed toward political and logistical frictions rather than direct outages, keeping the impact on Iranian crude supply and export flows contained,” they added. Meanwhile, oil inventories are seen as comfortable, with OECD stocks near recent historical averages and just under the five-year average. However, Citi warned that a 1–2 million barrel per day outage “would quickly erode spare capacity, pushing oil prices higher.” Beyond Iran, analysts pointed to rising Russia-Ukraine tensions as another contributor to near-term risk premia, noting renewed targeting of crude oil infrastructure. Still, they stressed that medium-term fundamentals remain bearish, with global oil and liquids supply expected to rise by about 1.8 million barrels per day this year. As a result, analysts said any rally above $70 a barrel should be viewed as temporary, and recommend “ selling any Brent rally” above that level “as balances loosen further through 1H’26.” Source: Investing.com 2026-01-16 hellenicshippingnews... window.___gcfg = {lang: 'en-US'}; (function(w, d, s) { function go(){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], load = function(url, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.src = url; js.id = id; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }; load('//connect.facebook.net/en/all.js#xfbml=1', 'fbjssdk'); load('https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js', 'gplus1js'); load('//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js', 'tweetjs'); } if (w.addEventListener) { w.addEventListener("load", go, false); } else if (w.attachEvent) { w.attachEvent("onload",go); } }(window, document, 'script')); tweet Share