Long-Term Oil-Price Forecasting Is Highly Uncertain, IEA Says

Forecasting oil prices beyond a year is “highly uncertain” because of the need for more transparent data from suppliers and consumers, according to the International Energy Agency

“Forecasts based on futures prices, surveys of analyst forecasts, forecasts based on a variety of simple time series regressions and other common forecasting techniques are generally inferior to the random-walk forecast, which implies that the best forecast of crude oil spot prices is simply the current price of oil,” the Paris-based IEA said today in its monthly Oil Market Report.