When it comes to pricing, oil quality isn’t the only consideration. Location, delivery logistics, and global supply and demand also play a part in oil trading. Trading tends to be particularly heavy when one of the two benchmarks undergoes unusual volatility. For example, WTI-Brent spread options on NYMEX experienced record trading volume from 2011 to 2013 after a glut in U.S. crude sent WTI prices in a tailspin relative to Brent. Open a newspaper and there’s a good chance you’ll find a news story about the price of oil going in one direction or the other.

WTI (West Texas Intermediate) oil – US crude with IG – is a blend of several oils drilled and processed in the United States. In the trading world, WTI is primarily a benchmark for the US oil market. asian session forex trading strategy Brent crude’s price is the benchmark for African, European, and Middle Eastern crude oil. The pricing mechanism for Brent dictates the value of roughly two-thirds of the world’s crude oil production.

1. Please do not hesitate to report them to us in the case whereby you find a mistake.
2. Crude oil is a major factor in markets and industries worldwide, so financial news outlets and traders across the globe closely monitor the rise and fall of crude oil futures.
3. Dollar more than that of Brent oil which is heavier and therefore less easy to refine.
4. But after the oil crisis of the late 1970s, refiners and government buyers began looking for a way to minimize the risk of sudden price increases.

The price of WTI tends to move in line with the price of Brent crude, although different global events will cause the value of each commodity to differ. The Cushing hub delivery system consists of 35 (20 inbound and 15 outbound) pipelines and 16 storage terminals. The hub has 90 million barrels of storage capacity and accounts for 13% of U.S. oil storage. The price of WTI is quoted on the NYMEX, or New York Mercantile Exchange, which is the American market where all the commodities are quoted. Until a few years ago, the price per barrel of WTI oil was systematically quoted at 1 U.S. Dollar more than that of Brent oil which is heavier and therefore less easy to refine.

The nominal price of crude oil is just one factor involved in understanding the crude oil market. Brent crude oil futures trade on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). Brent crude is traded internationally, so the delivery locations will vary by country.

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Brent is also tied to more worldwide oil markets and serves as an international benchmark, meaning that more factors are influencing its price. Furthermore, transporting WTI overseas to Brent crude’s market could come at a cost that would make WTI unable to compete with Brent crude in terms of pricing. Theoretically, WTI crude should trade at a premium to Brent crude, given the quality, but this is not always the case.

Price

The difference in price between Brent and WTI is called the Brent-WTI spread. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil is a specific grade of crude oil and one of the main three benchmarks in oil pricing, along with Brent and Dubai Crude. WTI is known as a light sweet oil because it contains less than 0.50% sulfur (normally about 0.24% to 0.34%), making it “sweet,” and has a low density making it “light.” WTI and Brent are the two major types of crude oil but they have certain specific differences. For example whereas WTI is the principal crude oil traded on the American markets, Brent is the primary crude oil in the petroleum sector on the European markets. It should be noted that certain differences exist relating to the composition and concentration of these two major types of crude oil.

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This guide explains exactly what the oil spot price represents and what factors determine the constantly moving live price. Open your IG account now for exposure to live oil markets, or try our risk-free demo. You can invest directly in oil company shares, such as BP or Royal Dutch Shell, and profit if the share price goes up. Investing also enables you to receive dividends, if the company pays them, and earn shareholder rights.

WTI crude oil can be characterised by its lightness as it is in fact lighter than Brent crude oil. It contains approximately 0.24% of sulphur which means it is a ‘light’ crude oil. The extraction of WTI crude oil is completed exclusively in North America.

In order to best anticipate the movements and evolution of its prices through CFDs, it is therefore necessary to know their specificities and main characteristics. WTI crude oil is a specific grade of crude oil and one of the main three benchmarks in oil pricing, along with Brent and Dubai Crude. It is one of the highest-quality oil, produced mainly in Texas, US. After the extraction, WTI travels to the Gulf of Mexico and goes through the refineries.

Like traditional oil options, these “spread options” are available on major exchanges. Brent futures are available on ICE Futures Europe, while WTI contracts are sold chiefly on the New York Mercantile Exchange, or NYMEX. The influential Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract (DME Oman) has been marketed on the Dubai Mercantile Exchange since 2007.

As tensions eased over the canal’s operation, the spread reduced. The IEA predicted in its February 2021 report that demand would recover 60% of its 2020 losses over the course of the year. Political shifts, weather events, and global https://g-markets.net/ health crises have been some of the biggest shock factors in the oil market. The most heavily traded grades are Brent North Sea crude (commonly known as “Brent crude”) and West Texas Intermediate (commonly known as “WTI”).

When you trade oil futures, you agree to trade the oil benchmark (in this case, Brent crude or WTI) at a specific price at a fixed date in the future. This method is preferred by traders with a longer-term view, as positions can be held without paying overnight funding charges. The political state of oil producing countries has a significant impact on the commodity’s production and price.

What Does WTI Mean?

To the average consumer, it’s easy to get the impression that there’s a singular, worldwide market for this crucial energy source. There has been a trend, due to advancements in oil drilling and fracking, of West Texas Intermediate becoming cheaper than Brent Crude oil. Prior to this, Brent Crude tended to be cheaper than West Texas Crude. This has been dubbed the American shale revolution, and the increased production led oil prices to fall from above $100 to below $50 from 2014 to 2015. Offshore oil rigs, despite being in the news more often, most famously with the BP oil leak of 2010, are heavily traded as barometers of domestic oil market health.

This quotation is priced on the New York Mercantile Exchange, which is the principal world commodities exchange. Brent crude oil trades six days a week, so based on which day you’re looking at crude oil spot prices, you may be getting the last recorded live price. At local time on Sundays for your chosen exchange, you’ll almost certainly get the last Brent crude oil spot price that the market closed with. While both are considered light sweet crude, they do have different trading volumes depending on each commodity’s futures contract months. And even though both trade on U.S. exchanges and their prices are correlated, meaning they tend to move together, there are times when WTI is more expensive than Brent and vice versa.

Another example is the 2020 oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, known as the OPEC crash. Brent crude plummeted to $33.36 (down by 24%) and US oil prices tumbled to $27.34 (down by around 34%). Soon after, the coronavirus pandemic sparked an oil storage crisis, which caused US crude to crash from $18.00 a barrel to -$38.00.

These are standardised products used to determine the prices for all other types. The reference oil traded most frequently and of major significance for the USA is West Texas Intermediate (WTI), while the most important in Asia is Dubai Fateh. Other reference oil types include Leona, Tijuana, Alaska North Slope, Zueitina or Urals. Unlike Brent Crude, WTI crude oil is not from any specific oil fields. ] local trade between oilfield production and refineries around Midland, Texas, and Cushing, Oklahoma, could be said[by whom? West Texas Intermediate, more generally represented by the initials WTI, is also sometimes called Texas Light Sweet by certain brokers.