Oil’s recovery set to drag on beyond next year

Oil prices won’t recover to pre-coronavirus levels by the end of next year, investment banks say.

A group of 10 investment banks polled by The Wall Street Journal forecast that futures for Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, will average $53.50 a barrel in 2021’s fourth quarter. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate futures will average $50.31 a barrel in the same quarter, they estimated.

While that means those institutions expect both benchmarks to rally $10 a barrel from their average forecasts for 2020’s final quarter, they forecast that Brent prices will remain well short of the $60-a-barrel pre-lockdown levels.