If you run a business that burns a lot of fuel, the question underneath every 2027 plan is a simple one. Will fuel cost more or less than it does today? The major forecasters have started to answer, and for once they are pointing in a broadly similar direction. Most expect oil to ease next year, with supply growing faster than demand. That is genuinely useful information. It is also not a promise, and 2026 gave everyone a fresh reminder of how quickly a calm forecast can come apart. This piece walks through what the main outlooks actually say for 2027, where they disagree, and how an operator should read a picture that points down without being anywhere near guaranteed.
The Headline: Forecasters Expect Lower Oil in 2027
Start with the U.S. Energy Information Administration, whose Short-Term Energy Outlook is one of the most widely watched calls in the market. In its July 2026 edition, the EIA expects Brent crude, the international benchmark, to average roughly $65 a barrel across 2027. That is about $15 lower than the agency projected just a month earlier in its June outlook, a sizable one-month revision that tells you how much the mood has shifted.
The EIA also sees prices easing as the year goes on rather than sitting flat. Its quarterly path runs from about $67.63 a barrel in the first quarter down to roughly $65.66 in the second, about $64.02 in the third, and near $61.97 by the fourth. In other words, the agency is not just calling for lower prices than today. It is calling for a gentle slide through the course of 2027.
The reason is straightforward supply and demand. The EIA expects the world to produce oil faster than it consumes it next year, with global inventories building by an average of about 5.0 million barrels a day. When barrels pile up, they push prices down. The one thing that partly offsets it, in the agency's view, is that governments and companies are expected to refill strategic and commercial reserves, and that restocking should soften the decline rather than let it run away.
A Projected Surplus, Seen From Two Angles
The EIA is not alone. The International Energy Agency, which publishes a closely followed monthly Oil Market Report, is pointing at an even larger 2027 surplus. In its July report, the IEA projects global oil supply climbing by about 8 million barrels a day, reaching roughly 110.3 million barrels a day. Demand, by its count, rises far more modestly, up about 2 million barrels a day to around 105.3 million. That gap between what the world can pump and what it will use is the surplus, and it is a wide one.
The IEA ties the supply surge to two forces. Production in the Mideast Gulf is recovering, and OPEC and its partners are raising output. Put those together and you get a lot more barrels chasing demand that is growing only slowly. On the numbers, the IEA is describing an oversupplied market, which is the classic setup for softer prices.
So far the two big Western agencies agree on direction. Where the outlook gets more interesting is on the demand side, and that is where the producers themselves see things differently.
Where the Forecasters Disagree: Demand
OPEC publishes its own outlook, and it is more bullish on how much oil the world will actually want. The group projects global oil demand near 107.86 million barrels a day by 2027, with growth of about 1.5 million barrels a day year on year. Break that down and roughly 0.2 million comes from the wealthier OECD economies, while about 1.3 million comes from the non-OECD world, the developing economies where fuel use is still climbing.
Notice the tension. OPEC's demand figure sits well above the IEA's, and a group that expects stronger demand naturally expects a tighter, firmer market than one forecasting a large glut. This is not unusual. Producers and consuming-country agencies often read the same tea leaves and land in different places, partly because demand a year out depends on economic growth that nobody can pin down precisely.
For a business trying to plan, the disagreement is the point. Even among the most sophisticated forecasters in the world, using enormous datasets, the 2027 demand picture is a genuine range, not a single number. The consensus leans toward lower prices because the supply side looks heavy. But the size of any decline, and whether it fully materializes, hinges on demand that reasonable experts are still arguing about.
The 2026 Reminder: Forecasts Can Break Fast
Here is the part worth sitting with. This time last year, plenty of outlooks pointed to a calm, well-supplied market. Then the year threw two shocks at once. A U.S.-Iran conflict disrupted the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most important passages in the global energy trade, and Russia curtailed diesel exports after strikes on its refineries. Even though crude oil was broadly well supplied, U.S. retail diesel climbed to about $5.13 a gallon in July 2026. Forecasts written just months earlier did not anticipate any of it.
That episode is not a reason to ignore the 2027 outlook. The forecasters are doing serious work, and their central case deserves weight. It is a reason to hold the outlook loosely. A benign forecast describes the most likely path given what is known today. It cannot price in the refinery strike that has not happened yet or the shipping chokepoint that has not closed. Fuel is unusually exposed to exactly those events, because a barrel can be plentiful while the diesel made from it is not, and because so much of the trade moves through a handful of vulnerable routes.
Policymakers are watching the same fog. The Federal Reserve's July 15, 2026 Beige Book noted that several districts reported elevated uncertainty about the outlook for fuel costs. When the central bank's regional survey flags fuel uncertainty by name, it is a fair signal that businesses across the country are feeling the same thing.
How a Business Should Read This
So what do you do with an outlook that points down but is not guaranteed? A few practical habits help, and they apply whether you are an owner-operator running a single truck or a medium-sized business managing a fleet and a delivery network.
Treat the forecast as a baseline, not a target. The EIA's roughly $65 Brent average is a reasonable center of gravity for a 2027 plan. Build around it, but do not bet the year on the price landing exactly there.
Plan in ranges, not points. Because the agencies disagree on demand and 2026 proved the tails are real, a sensible budget carries a low case near the benign forecast and a high case that assumes a disruption you cannot see yet. If your plan only survives in the low case, it is not really a plan.
Separate crude from what you actually buy. The headlines track Brent, but you fill up on diesel and gasoline, and 2026 showed those can move on their own when refining or shipping tightens. Watch retail fuel data alongside the crude outlook, not instead of it.
Where Certainty Fits
For some operators, the value of all this is less about predicting the exact price and more about removing the guesswork from a budget. That is the idea behind FuelAnchor, a fuel supply company that offers a fixed-price fuel supply agreement. It sets a maximum price per gallon for the term of your contract, usable at any station that accepts Visa or Mastercard, which gives you one number to plan against instead of a range you cannot control. It is not a financial product, and it is not a bet that prices will rise. The forecasts, after all, currently point lower. It is simply budgeting predictability, plus protection in case the benign outlook turns out wrong, and 2026 was a clear reminder that it can.
None of this replaces judgment. The 2027 outlook is one of the more coherent ones in recent memory, with the EIA, the IEA, and even OPEC agreeing that the world will not be short of oil. Read it and let it shape your baseline. Just remember that the same tools called for a calm 2026, and the year did not cooperate. The businesses that come through 2027 in good shape will be the ones that took the forecast seriously and still built a plan that survives if it is wrong.
Sources
- U.S. Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook
- U.S. Energy Information Administration, Today in Energy
- Rigzone, EIA Reveals Latest Oil Price Forecast
- International Energy Agency, Oil Market Report (July 2026)
- Argus Media, IEA cuts 2026 demand forecast, sees huge 2027 surplus
- Federal Reserve, Beige Book (July 2026)