Brent crudetraded at $115.29 per barrel on Wednesday, April 29, 2026, up 3.62% on thesession and rising for the seventh consecutive day, the longest winning streakof the year and the highest closing level for the European benchmark since June2022. The June2026 contract has now gained more than 88% over the past 12 months, lifted bythe de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the ninth week of US-Iranconflict, and Tuesday's surprise announcement that the United Arab Emirateswill leave OPEC and OPEC+ on May 1.Followme on X for real-time market analysis: @ChmielDk.You can find all of my coverage on my analyst page.Thecatalysts now compete with each other. Goldman Sachs upgraded its Q4 2026 Brentforecast to $90 from $80 on April 26, the fourth upward revision since the warbegan. JPMorgan continues to flag a $150 overshoot if Hormuz disruptionextends. Both projections sit above the futures curve, which still prices a Q3reversion below $90.Why Is Oil Rising? BrentTests Highest Level Since June 2022Brent'sseventh straight gain pushed the contract through the $113 level, a zone thathas capped every rally since March, and into the $115 to $117 band last seenduring the June 2022 Russia-Ukraine spike. Iraqi, Saudi, and Emirati productionremains shut in at roughly 9.1 million barrels per day in April, according tothe EIA, the largest physical disruption in the modern history of the globalcrude market.The dollarhas not suppressed prices the way it usually does. Treasury yields are rising,the dollar index is steady, and oil is climbing anyway, a configuration thatsignals supply is the dominant variable.Refiningmargins validate the squeeze. The distillate crack spread at New York Harboraveraged $1.42 per gallon in March, the highest monthly print since 2022, whileUS retail gasoline prices have climbed to the highest level in nearly fouryears.Thestructural drivers now in play:Strait of Hormuz effectively closed since February 28, removing roughly 20% of seaborne oil supply9.1 million b/d of Persian Gulf production shut in for April per EIAUAE exit from OPEC effective May 1 fragments the cartel's pricing power9.6 mb/d global deficit in Q2 2026 in Goldman's revised supply-demand modelUAE Leaves OPEC: AStructural Blow to Coordinated SupplyThe UAE'sannouncement that it will exit both OPEC and OPEC+ on May 1, after 59 years ofmembership, marks the largest fracture in the cartel since Qatar's departure in2019. The UAE is OPEC's third-largest producer behind Saudi Arabia and Iraq,with installed capacity near 4.8 million barrels per day and the operationalflexibility to bring barrels online faster than any other member.NigelGreen, CEO of deVere Group, called the move a removal of a core pillar of oilmarket stability. "The UAE is not a marginal player. It's one of the veryfew producers with both meaningful spare capacity and the operationalflexibility to bring barrels online quickly, which has been critical to howOpec has managed supply and influenced pricing," Green said.The marketreaction has been more measured than the headline suggests. "Markets arealready looking beyond the headlines to what this means for future supply.There's no immediate loss of barrels, so the move reflects uncertainty pricingrather than a genuine supply shock," Green added.Thelonger-term read is more concerning. Rystad Energy framed the UAE departure asa permanent structural weakening of the group, consistent with the conclusionin my April 7 oil price analysis that the post-war oil regime wouldnot look like the pre-war one.Strait of Hormuz: Wherethe Physical Crisis Actually LivesFuturesprices understate the dislocation in the cash market. Linh Tran, Market Analystat XS.com,anchored the supply-side framing in comments to FinanceMagnates.com."WTI'sreturn to the $100 per barrel level once again signals a clear shift in marketstructure. The primary driver is not a surge in demand, but rather supply-sidedynamics, as geopolitical factors are now directly impacting physical oilflows," Tran said. She estimated that 10 to 13 million barrels per day arenow affected by the Hormuz bottleneck, sufficient to push the market frombalance into a structurally tight environment.Tran framedthe consequence in trader terms: "The market is no longer simply pricingin risk, but rather a prolonged period of supply disruption."Thefutures-cash gap is now extreme. Arlan Suderman, Chief Commodities Economist atStoneX,said cash prices in Asia and parts of Europe have at times exceeded levels morethan 50% higher than where Brent futures are trading. "Thefutures market does not reflect the reality of the cash market, especially inAsia and parts of Europe, where actual shortages continue to mount,"Suderman said. He addedthat rising energy prices are already feeding through to "elevatedinflation pressures going forward, leading to rising Treasury yields," achain that my March Hormuz analysis flagged early.Brent Crude TechnicalAnalysis: $115 Is the LineIn 15 yearsanalyzing markets, I've only seen Brent close above $115 in three priorepisodes: the 2008 super-spike, the 2011 Libya supply shutdown, and the firstweeks of the 2022 Ukraine war. This is the fourth.My chartshows Brent has been consolidating for the past month and a half inside a wide$92 to $115 range. The lower bound at $92 to $94 is reinforced by the September2023 and April 2024 peaks and the 50-day exponential moving average. The upperbound at $113 to $115 marks both the local highs from March 2026 and theresistance zone established during the June 2022 cycle peak. Today's session istesting that ceiling.A weeklyclose above $115 opens the path toward $125, the June 2022 swing high, with the$140 March 2022 peak as the next major resistance. A failure here, and a returninside the consolidation, points to $92 to $94 as the first downside target. A breakdownbelow the 50 EMA would open the move toward $80, the January 2025 high, andultimately $77, where the 200 MA currently sits and where the line between anuptrend and a downtrend lies.The currentprice sits roughly 49% above the 200 MA, an unusually wide gap that typicallyresolves through either a sharp pullback or a multi-month grind sideways whilethe moving average catches up. Direction will be decided by Hormuz, not bychart patterns.Oil Price Predictions2026: How High Can Brent Go?Institutionalforecasts have moved up four times since the war began on February 28. Theconsensus is now firmly above $90 in the bull cases, but the divergence betweenbase and risk scenarios is the widest since 2008.JPMorgan's$150 call assumes Hormuz disruption extends into mid-May; my read is that thisis no longer a tail scenario after the UAE exit reduced the probability of acoordinated production response. Goldman's $135 extreme assumes the marketneeds to force demand destruction, and the New York Harbor refining margin datasuggests that response is already beginning. Goldman's$90 base case looks too low if the UAE exit erodes coordinated discipline. My$115 chart level is a more realistic Q3 anchor. The EIA's $70 year-end targetdepends on a Hormuz reopening that the EIA itself now expects to be partialthrough late 2026. The $200Macquarie/Wood Mac scenario remains an extreme tail, with the FinanceMagnates.comprediction-market analysis showing traders assigning low odds even now.Cross-assetspillover is already underway. As my Bitcoin Hormuz analysis noted, oil's grip on inflationexpectations is reshaping the rate-cut path, while the gold-oil correlation that previously held has brokendown.FAQ, Oil PricesWhy is the price of oilrising in April 2026? Brent crudetrades above $115 on April 29, 2026, driven by the de facto closure of theStrait of Hormuz since February 28, 9.1 million barrels per day of shut-inPersian Gulf production per EIA, and the UAE's surprise announcement that itwill leave OPEC on May 1, fragmenting the cartel's coordinated supply response.How high can Brent crudego in 2026? JPMorganwarns Brent could overshoot to $150 if Hormuz remains shut into mid-May.Goldman Sachs flagged $135 as an extreme demand-destruction peak and $115 to$120 as a Q4 risk scenario. Macquarie and Wood Mackenzie sketched $200 as atail outcome. My TA targets $125 on a clean break above $115, with $140 as themajor ceiling.Will the UAE leaving OPECmake oil cheaper? Not in thenear term. The UAE has 4.8 million b/d of capacity and pushed for higher quotasinside OPEC. Solo production could eventually add supply, but with Hormuzclosed it cannot reach global markets quickly. The structural read is a weaker,more fragmented OPEC, which lowers long-term price floors but raises short-termvolatility.What does Goldman Sachsforecast for oil in 2026? GoldmanSachs raised its Q4 2026 Brent forecast to $90 per barrel on April 26, thefourth upgrade since February. The bank's risk scenario sees $115 to $120 Brentin Q4 if Hormuz disruption extends, with an extreme peak at $135. Goldman nowmodels a 9.6 million b/d global oil deficit in Q2 2026.How does the oil priceaffect inflation and the Fed? SustainedBrent above $100 per barrel feeds directly into refined product prices, with USaverage gasoline at the highest level in nearly four years. StoneX's ArlanSuderman warned that "rising energy prices suggest elevated inflationpressures going forward, leading to rising Treasury yields," limiting theFed's flexibility to cut rates and pressuring risk assets.This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.