Regional product markets short-term outlook March 2021

This update incorporates all of the regional crude runs and product-by-product supply-demand balances through to end-2022 on a regional level. Rising coronavirus cases in the Asia-Pacific region, extended lockdowns in Europe and a heavy maintenance season across the globe limit any recovery in global crude runs until Q2 2021. From Q2, most notably, annual growth in Chinese activity starts easing, but by contrast, US and European refiners are expected to increase run rates through to Q3 2021 to meet peak summer travel demand. As such on a q-o-q basis, we see crude run growth to come mostly from the Atlantic Basin in Q2 and Q3 given weak 2020 base levels, with stronger growth in the Middle East through Q4 2021 as the new greenfield sites of Jazan and Al-Zour ramp up.