Brent Crude

Oil platform in the North Sea

Brent Crude may refer to any or all of the components of the Brent Complex, a physically and financially traded oil market based around the North Sea of Northwest Europe; colloquially, Brent Crude usually refers to the price of the ICE (Intercontinental Exchange) Brent Crude Oil futures contract or the contract itself. The original Brent Crude referred to a trading classification of sweet light crude oil first extracted from the Brent oilfield in the North Sea in 1976.[1] As production from the Brent oilfield declined to zero in 2021, crude oil blends from other oil fields have been added to the trade classification. The current Brent blend consists of crude oil produced from the Forties (added 2002), Oseberg (added 2002), Ekofisk (added 2007), Troll (added 2018) oil fields (also known as the BFOET Quotation)[2] and oil drilled from Midland, Texas in the Permian Basin (added 2023).[3]

The Brent Crude oil marker is also known as Brent Blend, London Brent and Brent petroleum. This grade is described as light because of its relatively low density, and sweet because of its low sulphur content.

Brent is the leading global price benchmark for Atlantic basin crude oils. It is used to set the price of two-thirds of the world's internationally traded crude oil supplies. It is one of the two main benchmark prices for purchases of oil worldwide, the other being West Texas Intermediate (WTI).

  1. ^ "Platts Dated Brent vs other 'Brents'" (PDF). p. 1. Retrieved 2020-05-15.
  2. ^ Imsirovic, Adi. "Changes to the 'Dated Brent' benchmark: More to come" (PDF). The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. p. 3. Retrieved 2020-05-15.
  3. ^ Uberti, David; Henderson, Bob; Wallace, Joe (2023-05-31). "Move Over, Scotland. U.S. Oil Enters World's Most Important Benchmark". WSJ. Retrieved 2023-09-04.