Rystad Energy

Rystad Energy's named Iran-war scenarios have been overtaken by the market. Modelled in March 2026 at $110 per barrel by April and $135 per barrel by June for two- and four-month conflict paths, Brent instead fell to $70.6-71.7 by 2 July as the Hormuz risk premium unwound faster than physical supply was verified. Rystad's analysts have since broadened into other 2026 desks: its European gas team argued a proposed EUR 40-44/MWh German dual-mode injection threshold was a transient dead-wind coincidence rather than a durable floor. Its Russia team separately estimates Moscow's combined oil tax take at only $3-4 a barrel above production cost with Urals near $50, some 40-45% below the $59 federal-budget benchmark.

Rystad Energy is an independent energy research and consultancy firm founded in 2004 and headquartered in Oslo, Norway, providing data, analytics, and market forecasts across oil, gas, and renewables to major producers, investors, and governments. Its scenario-based Iran-war forecasts placed it alongside Wood Mackenzie and Vanda Insights among named market forecasters, though Rystad published duration-linked bands rather than the single-point $150-200 targets some rivals set.

The gap between Rystad's April-June bands and the market's actual July prints is itself instructive: it shows how quickly a geopolitical premium can unwind once diplomatic signals outrun physical verification, a pattern its analysts have carried into scepticism about Germany's gas-storage threshold and confidence in the scale of Russia's fiscal squeeze.