Even the Russian government is not optimistic about oil prices! Expect a 17% cut in Brent crude oil prices by 2025.

According to Russian media reports on Monday local time, the Russian Economic Ministry has lowered its forecast for the average annual price of Brent crude oil, the international oil price benchmark, by about 17% from last year's expectations. It is understood that the government department, which has been bullish on international oil price expectations for years, expects the average price of Brent crude oil in 2025 to be $68 per barrel, significantly lower than the previous forecast of $81.7 per barrel. Before the Russian Economic Ministry lowered oil prices, Wall Street giants such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley had already lowered international oil prices several times this year. In addition, the latest forecast for Urals crude oil, the main export crude oil type from Russia, is $56 per barrel, while the Russian Economic Ministry had previously based its 2025 fiscal budget on a assumption of $69.7 per barrel. "We believe this is a quite conservative estimate," the government department quoted a representative of the Ministry of Economy as saying. In early April this year, the price of Urals crude oil dropped sharply to the lowest level since 2023 - around $53 per barrel, and last week it remained below the important $60 mark. At the time of writing, the North American crude oil pricing benchmark - WTI crude oil futures prices fell by more than 2% to $63.2 per barrel, while Brent crude oil futures prices also fell by more than 2% to around $66.40 per barrel. As commodity market traders continue to worry that the US-led trade war may slow global economic growth, thereby suppressing energy demand, oil prices have seen a sharp decline since April. Adding to this, it is expected that the OPEC+ organization led by Saudi Arabia and Russia will increase oil production by 411,000 barrels per day in May, but some of this increase may be offset by countries that have exceeded production cuts. In addition, Iran's Foreign Minister stated that representatives from Iran and the United States have agreed to begin framing a possible nuclear agreement. A US official also said that the talks had made "very good progress." Positive negotiations between the US and Iran are expected to push more Iranian oil into the global supply and demand market. Last week, Wall Street financial giant Goldman Sachs once again lowered its expectations for international oil prices, mainly due to the continuing expectations of an "oversupply" in the oil market since the beginning of this year and the much softer global oil demand growth under the "tariff storm" led by the Trump administration. The bank currently expects that the average price of Brent crude oil in the remaining time of 2025 will be $63 per barrel, with the average price of WTI crude oil expected to be $59 per barrel; Goldman Sachs further lowered its forecast for 2026 oil prices, with the average price of Brent crude oil in 2026 significantly reduced to $58 per barrel, and the WTI crude oil price expectation reduced to just $55 per barrel. Since Trump initiated a new round of global trade wars, international oil prices have shown a sharp decline for most of the past week, with the North American crude oil benchmark - WTI crude oil falling below the key breakeven point of $65 per barrel - this is the breakeven point for many US shale oil companies to develop new oil wells. This has caused deep unease among the US oil and gas drilling community and even sparked resentment among some oil and gas extraction industry players who had once strongly supported Trump. The latest significant downward revision of oil price and demand expectations reflects Goldman Sachs's belief that global oil demand will suffer a historic blow under the heavy pressure of Trump's tariffs. Goldman Sachs expects a significant increase in oversupply in the oil market - with an expected oversupply of up to 800,000 barrels per day (mb/d) in 2025 and up to 1.4 million barrels per day in 2026. The bank also stated that these oversupply pressures will continue to exert strong pressure on Brent crude oil and WTI prices.