Oil products price forecast mid-month update January 2021

The excel files associated with this report provide a mid-month update to our short-term products prices and margins forecasts. Prices and margins for January 2021 have been updated to reflect the oil price movements so far this month. These changes reflect recent data releases and major market developments since our last update on 9 January. We have made no revision to our Brent price outlook for this mid-month update and will provide a revised outlook based on a full supply / demand balance analysis during the monthly price update. Our global composite monthly refining margin recovered further in January to US$2.02/bbl driven by strength in gasoline and naphtha cracks. We expect the composite margins to weaken through Q1 2020 due to weaker transport fuel cracks and narrow light-heavy crude differentials, but a tighter global gasoline market will prevent it returning to negative values. The next full update to our prices and margins forecast will published on February 1 2021.