Rabobank Sees Oil Prices Easing in 2027 Amid Refinery Repairs and Shipping Delays
Rabobank has released its oil price forecast for Q4 2026 and all of 2027. The bank projects an average Brent crude price of $105 in Q4 2026, compared to Goldman Sachs' forecast of $85 at the end of the year.
The disagreement between Rabobank and Goldman Sachs concerns how quickly recovering crude shipments can relieve pressure on energy prices. While Goldman's outlook assumes recovering Gulf production, alternative shipping arrangements, and subdued demand, Rabobank emphasizes the shortage of usable fuels.
Rabobank estimates that Persian Gulf refined-product exports are running at a quarter of pre-war levels, with two million barrels a day of refinery capacity shut across the Middle East. The bank also highlights Russian refinery outages and tighter Chinese controls on imports and refinery output as constraints.
Rabobank expects prices to ease in 2027, forecasting Brent averages of $101 in Q1 2027 and $98 in Q2. However, the bank notes that repairing a refinery takes time, and moving a tanker also takes time. As such, any improvement in the war or these constraints will not be immediate.
Rabobank highlights the wider economic consequences of the energy market stress, stating that diesel is the best measure of how stressed the markets are, and how that translates to logistics, shipping, agricultural markets, construction, mining, and manufacturing. Inflation will follow if these issues are not resolved.