Rabobank holds its Brent crude forecasts steady at $80/bbl for Q3 2026 and $78/bbl for Q4, arguing crude supply stays resilient despite Persian Gulf tensions. The bank warns that refined products look increasingly vulnerable, where limited conversion capacity leaves diesel and jet fuel exposed to price spikes.
Rabobank strategists Joe DeLaura and Florence Schmit are keeping their Brent Oil forecasts broadly unchanged, projecting $80/bbl in Q3 2026 and $78/bbl in Q4 2026. Their reasoning splits the oil complex in two: crude looks steady, while refined products look fragile.
Crude markets remain relatively resilient even with renewed Persian Gulf tensions, according to the strategists. That resilience is why they see no reason yet to move the numbers, holding an $80/bbl average for Brent through Q3 and $78/bbl into Q4.
The refined side tells a different story. Rabobank argues that middle distillates — diesel and gasoil, jet and kerosene, and the marine gasoil behind bunker fuels — will not track crude lower, because the binding constraint is refining and conversion capacity rather than crude availability. On why reopening the Strait of Hormuz would not fix the bottleneck, the bank points to lost refining capacity: "Reopening the Strait adds barrels of crude; it does not add hydrocrackers…".
As a result, the bank says distillate cracks can stay elevated even if headline prices ease. Rabobank projects that diesel, jet and marine-fuel cracks can stay high as Brent and WTI soften, pointing to Gulf refining disruption, inventory draws and lower Russian fuel exports as the forces tightening middle-distillate balances. The strategists say they are waiting on three key events before substantively changing the outlook.
Source: FXStreet
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