Brent: Higher risk premium and retest of highs – Rabobank
Rabobank's Senior Energy Strategists Joe DeLaura and Florence Schmit revise their Brent outlook higher as Middle East disruptions tighten supply routes. They now see Brent at $107/bbl in Q4 2026 and $94/bbl in 2027, warning that extended outages to Saudi infrastructure and Red Sea tanker flows could push prices back toward this year’s $126 highs.
Brent lifted on Middle East shocks
"Brent crude oil is trading near $106/bbl and broke through the key $100 psychological level last week on September 9th."
"We expect Brent to trade in a volatile range between $70-75 as our targeted support points on the low end and $95-$100 as the upper bound. We see the key movers to depend on news: will there be more oil flows disrupted through Hormuz or the Bab el-Mandab strait, or will the diversionary terminals of Yanbu or Fujairah be attacked? If the answer ends up being YES, we expect $100+ crude to materialize again."
“Oil prices broke upward after attacks forced Saudi Arabia to close its 7 million-barrel-per-day East-West pipeline, a critical route for bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.”
"Yanbu inventories may sustain Saudi exports for around a week to the SUMED pipeline at Suez, but an extended pipeline outage could cause major supply disruption and push Brent even further up to retest the $126 highs for the year."
“We are raising our oil and refined products accordingly. We are forecasting Brent Q4 2026 ↑ to $107/bbl, 2027 ↑ to $94/bbl from $86/bbl. WTI Q4 2026 ↑ to $103/bbl, 2027 ↑ to $88/bbl from $82/bbl. We also increase NY Harbor HO Q4 2026 ↑ to $5.02/gal from $4.31/gal, 2027 ↑ to $4.25/gal from $3.74/gal. We revise ICE Gasoil Q4 2026 ↑ to $1425/mt, 2027 ↑ to $1220/mt.”
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