driven higher by unexpectedly high demand and catastrophic hurricanes halting production oil prices rose for a fifthstraight day on monday hitting their highest levels in three years as analysts point out cold winter weather and a busy pandemic travel season should only boost prices further the price of uk oil benchmark brent crude and us west texas intermediate jumped about 2 apiece monday morning to 7956 and 7535 per barrel respectively—marking each of their highest levels since us sanctions on iran drove oil prices to fouryear highs in october 2018 oil prices have surged about 10 over the past month as hurricanes ida and nicholas swept through the southeast and shut down production in the gulf of mexico for weeks the shutdowns effectively cancelled out the impact of modest production hikes from international producers earlier this summer goldman sachs analysts wrote in a sunday note calling ida the most bullish hurricane for oil prices in us history the analysts said global oil demand has recovered from the delta variantspurred spread of covid19 more quickly than they anticipated this year creating a larger than expected gap between oil supply and demand additionally forecasts calling for a colderthanusual winter in the northern hemisphere could mean added demand for heating oil goldman noted upping its yearend forecast for brent crude prices from 80 to 90—suggesting prices could rise another 12 in the next three months in a morning note oanda analyst edward moya agreed oil prices are on a oneway street headed higher adding us wti prices could also hit 80 before years end as a steady decline in covid19 cases ushers in a strongerthanexpected holiday travel season 60 that’s how much the price of wti oil has surged this year alone while the price of brent crude has climbed about 50 what to watch for in its weekend note goldman cited potential new covid19 variants as a risk to oil demand that could curb rising prices the bank however doesnt expect prices will dip back down to 80 until the fourth quarter of 2022 oil producers this summer have been careful to ramp up supply after excess inventories drove prices down to negative territory for the first time in history last spring that happened after an allout price war erupted between oilproducing giants russia and saudi arabia in march 2020—just as travel demand began to plummet during the coronavirus outbreak costlytomaintain storage tanks soon filled up with no buyers and the price of one american oil futures contract plunged below zero in april 2020 in july oil producers—still wary about the lingering pandemic—agreed to return to precovid oil production levels by september 2022 heres why a standoff between oil producers is fueling surging gas prices forbes