MOSCOW (MRC) -- Even as global prices end the year at about USD51 a barrel, near the average for 2015-2017, it masks a year of volatility, said Reuters.
In April, U.S. crude plunged deep into negative territory and Brent dropped below USD20 per barrel, slammed by the COVID-19 pandemic and a price war between oil giants Saudi Arabia and Russia. The remainder of 2020 was spent recovering from that drop as the pandemic destroyed fuel demand around the world. While the short-lived decline of U.S. oil futures below negative-USD40 a barrel is not likely to be repeated in 2021, new lockdowns and a phased rollout of vaccines to treat the virus will restrain demand next year, and perhaps beyond.
"We really haven't seen anything like this - not in the financial crisis, not after 9/11," said Peter McNally, global sector lead for industrials, materials and energy at research firm Third Bridge. "The impact on demand was remarkable and swift."
Fossil-fuel demand in coming years could remain softer even after the pandemic as countries seek to limit emissions to slow climate change. Major oil companies, such as BP Plc and Total SE, published forecasts that include scenarios where global oil demand may have peaked in 2019.
World oil and liquid fuels production fell in 2020 to 94.25 million barrels per day (bpd) from 100.61 million bpd in 2019, and output is expected to recover only to 97.42 million bpd next year, the Energy Information Administration said.
"Every cycle feels like the worst when you're going through it, but this one has been a doozy," said John Roby, chief executive of Dallas, Texas-based oil producer Teal Natural Resources LLC.
As MRC informed earlier, Asian refining margins for jet fuel inched higher on Monday, but reimposed travel restrictions in several countries to slow the spread of a highly-infectious coronavirus variant is expected to dent passenger demand recovery. Refining margins, also known as cracks, for jet fuel ticked up USD0.05 to USD4.76/bbl over Dubai crude during Asian trading hours. The cracks, however, have shed 11% since hitting a more than nine-month high of USD5.35/bbl on Dec. 18.
We remind that PetroChina has nearly doubled the amount of Russian crude being processed at its refinery in Dalian, the company's biggest, since January 2018, as a new supply agreement had come into effect. The Dalian Petrochemical Corp, located in the northeast port city of Dalian, was expected to process 13 million tonnes, or 260,000 bpd of Russian pipeline crude in 2018, up by about 85 to 90 percent from the previous year's level. Dalian has the capacity to process about 410,000 bpd of crude. The increase follows an agreement worked out between the Russian and Chinese governments under which Russia's top oil producer Rosneft was to supply 30 million tonnes of ESPO Blend crude to PetroChina in 2018, or about 600,000 bpd. That would have represented an increase of 50 percent over 2017 volumes.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing PE and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia decreased in January-November 2020 by 17% year on year and reached 569,900 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the greatest reduction in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia increased by 21% year on year to about 202,000 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2020. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
MRC