Despite the wild ride of oil prices in 2018—in which gains earlier in the year were wiped out in massive sell-offs in the fourth quarter—energy and banking professionals expect Brent Crude oil prices not to deviate too much from current levels in the next five years. The median forecast of more than 1,000 energy market professionals surveyed earlier this month expects oil prices to average between $65 and $70 a barrel in the years 2019 through 2023, the annual Reuters survey showed. For this year, the highest number of energy industry, banking, hedge fund, and physical commodities professionals, among others, expect Brent Crude prices to average $65 a barrel, unchanged from the surveys of the past three years. The over 1,000 survey respondents, 26 percent of whom are directly involved in oil and gas production, see Brent averaging $65 in 2020, too, although $70 oil is a very close […]