Will the maximum WTI front month settle price reach $115.01 by Dec 31, 2026

The curve exhibits a dramatic cliff structure with a sharp discontinuity between the two tenor buckets. The near-term 6-day contracts (resolving July 26) show extremely high YES probabilities clustered between 97-99%, with the cheapest YES probability at 78% appearing at the T92.00 strike. This represents the only meaningful probability gradient within the near term, where probabilities collapse from 98% at T91.00 down to just 3% by T92.50. In stark contrast, the 159-day contracts (resolving December 26) display substantially lower probabilities, with the highest at 40% (T115) and declining to just 11% (T200), making the entire far-term bucket the cheapest on an absolute basis. This inverted and severely compressed curve structure reveals a market consensus that the event—likely a WTI price maximum threshold—will either occur imminently within the next six days or not occur at all during the forecast period. The market assigns negligible probability mass to outcomes between the two resolution dates, suggesting traders view the event as binary: either it happens very soon around the 91-92 strike level, or the probability of it happening by year-end remains persistently low. The 159-day contracts' gradual decline from 40% to 11% indicates mild skepticism about higher price levels materializing even with additional time, but the overwhelming concentration of trading volume and probability in the near term signals that market participants are pricing in an imminent resolution window rather than a distributed probability across the full forecast horizon.