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December
16
2020

World Bank Sees Oil Prices Averaging $44 In 2021
Tsvetana Paraskova

Oil prices, defined as an average of Brent, West Texas Intermediate, and Dubai prices, are expected to rise to an average of $44 per barrel next year and $50 a barrel in 2022, up from expected $41 in 2020, the World Bank said on Wednesday in its latest report on Russia.

According to the World Bank, the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to impact global oil demand, with consumption still below pre-pandemic levels next year. Oil consumption is expected to remain around 5 percent lower than in 2019 by the end of 2021, the World Bank said.  

The outlook for oil production in Russia, whose energy exports are key to budget revenues, will depend on the duration and depth of the OPEC+ oil production cuts, the World Bank said.

While a better-than-expected economic rebound in the third quarter of 2020 prompted the World Bank to revise up its economic outlook on Russia to a 4.0-percent contraction compared to a 5-percent decline expected in September, the bank warned that Russia’s economy is losing momentum with the resurgence of COVID-19 in the fourth quarter.

Russia’s federal budget registered a deficit in the first ten months of 2020, compared to a surplus for the same period of 2019, due to higher spending to contain the pandemic and the need to support the economy in the face of lower oil and gas revenues, the World Bank said. Russia’s oil and gas revenues slumped by 35.2 percent year over year between January and October 2020, on the back of plunging oil prices and reduced oil production because of the OPEC+ pact.

“A weaker ruble could not fully compensate for the fall in oil prices and the drop in economic activity,” the World Bank said.

Vaccinations in 2021 could put the economy on a path to sustained recovery and to a decline in poverty, but risks are tilted to the downside, according to the bank.

The oil price crash that Russia helped create, along with the coronavirus-driven global recession, will result in Russia’s economy shrinking this year by the most in 11 years, the World Bank said in its previous economic report on Russia in July.  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

Tsvetana is a writer for the U.S.-based Divergente LLC consulting firm with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. 

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