Brent Crude Oil Price - Benchmark and Futures Context
Benchmark or futures?
Public pages may show spot, front-month futures, continuous futures, or settlement.
Contract month
Futures comparisons should use contract_month and front_month metadata where available.
Freshness
Use returned timestamps and data_age_warning rather than page labels alone.
Access timestamped Brent crude oil pricing data through our API. Compare values by source timestamp, benchmark type, and contract month before deciding a price is stale or mismatched.
Need this data in your app?
GET /v1/prices/latest?by_code=BRENT_CRUDE_USD → $87.07Source Timestamps
Brent crude responses include returned timestamps for freshness checks
Instrument Context
Distinguish spot benchmarks, futures contracts, and continuous series
API Integration
Simple REST API with comprehensive documentation and code examples
What Is Brent Crude Oil?
Brent crude oil is the world's most widely used oil price benchmark, pricing approximately two-thirds of all internationally traded crude oil. Originally named after the Brent oil field in the North Sea (discovered by Shell in 1971), it now refers to the BFOE blend — a combination of crude oils from the Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk, and Troll fields.
Brent trades on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in London as futures contracts, with the front-month contract being the most liquid. It's classified as a light, sweet crude with an API gravity of approximately 38° and sulfur content below 0.4%.
Unlike WTI crude oil which is landlocked at Cushing, Oklahoma, Brent is waterborne — making it immediately available for global export. This is why Brent, not WTI, sets the price for most of the world's oil supply.
Brent Crude Specifications
The BFOE Blend — 5 North Sea Fields
Brent
UK • Shell (1976)
Forties
UK • BP (1975)
Oseberg
Norway • Equinor (1988)
Ekofisk
Norway • ConocoPhillips (1971)
Troll
Norway • Equinor (added 2023)
Brent vs WTI Crude Oil — Key Differences
| Feature | Brent Crude | WTI Crude |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | North Sea (UK/Norway) | Midcontinent US (Cushing, OK) |
| Exchange | ICE (London) | NYMEX (New York) |
| API Gravity | ~38° (light) | ~39.6° (slightly lighter) |
| Sulfur | <0.4% (sweet) | <0.24% (sweeter) |
| Delivery | Waterborne (Sullom Voe) | Pipeline (Cushing, OK) |
| Global Use | ~67% of world oil pricing | ~33% (mainly Americas) |
| Price Level | Usually $2-5 premium | Usually discount to Brent |
| API Code | BRENT_CRUDE_USD | WTI_USD |
The Brent-WTI spread fluctuates based on US shale production, pipeline constraints, and global demand. Track both benchmarks in real time via our API, or see our detailed WTI vs Brent comparison and live spread tracker.
How OPEC+ Decisions Affect Brent Crude Prices
OPEC+ controls ~40% of global oil production. Their production quotas directly set the floor and ceiling for Brent crude prices. Here's how:
Bullish for Brent
- Production cuts — reducing supply lifts prices (e.g., 2020 cuts of 9.7 mb/d)
- Strong compliance — members sticking to quotas signals discipline
- Saudi voluntary cuts — additional beyond OPEC+ agreement
- Geopolitical disruptions — Libya, Iran, Venezuela outages
Bearish for Brent
- Production increases — unwinding cuts floods the market
- Quota cheating — members overproducing above agreed levels
- Price wars — as in 2020 Saudi-Russia dispute
- US shale growth — non-OPEC supply offsetting cuts
Track OPEC+ supply alongside Brent prices on our OPEC Basket page or monitor US rig counts for non-OPEC supply trends.
Brent Crude Oil — Historical Price Milestones
Nearly 50 years of Brent price history reveals extreme volatility driven by geopolitics, financial crises, and energy transitions. Our API provides complete historical data back to 1976.
July 2008 — Peak demand from China + speculative bubble before the Global Financial Crisis. Price collapsed 75% in 5 months.
Dec 1998 — Asian financial crisis + OPEC overproduction. Triggered emergency OPEC cuts that stabilized the market.
April 2020 — Pandemic destroyed demand + Saudi-Russia price war. OPEC+ agreed to historic 9.7 mb/d cut to stabilize.
March 2022 — Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered supply fears. EU sanctions on Russian oil reshaped global trade flows.
April 2011 — Libyan civil war removed 1.6 mb/d from global supply. Brent stayed above $100 for 3+ years.
Jan 2016 — US shale production doubled supply. OPEC refused to cut, triggering a 2-year price war before finally agreeing to limit output.
Frequently Asked Questions About Brent Crude Oil
What is the current Brent crude oil price?
The latest observed Brent crude oil value is $87.07 per barrel, updated 12 minutes ago by the returned source timestamp. Public market sites may show a spot benchmark, continuous futures series, settlement value, or a different contract month.
What is Brent crude oil?
Brent crude oil is a light, sweet crude oil extracted from the North Sea. It serves as the leading global price benchmark for Atlantic basin crude oils. Named after the Brent oil field, it's actually a blend of oils from multiple North Sea fields including Brent, Forties, Oseberg, and Ekofisk (BFOE).
Why is Brent crude more expensive than WTI?
Brent crude typically trades at a premium to WTI due to several factors: it's waterborne and easier to transport globally, has direct access to international markets, and represents a broader basket of oils. The Brent-WTI spread varies based on U.S. production levels, pipeline constraints, and global supply-demand dynamics.
How often are Brent oil prices updated?
Brent responses include source timestamps and update regularly during market hours. Use the returned timestamp, source, and any contract metadata before comparing values to another market site.
What factors affect Brent crude oil prices?
Brent crude prices are influenced by:
- Global Supply: OPEC+ production decisions and quotas
- Demand Factors: Global economic growth and energy consumption
- Geopolitics: Middle East tensions and sanctions on oil producers
- Market Factors: USD strength, inventory levels, and refinery demand
How far back does your Brent crude historical data go?
Our Brent crude historical data goes back to 1976 - nearly 50 years of price history. This includes annual average prices from the Energy Institute Statistical Review, providing research-grade data for long-term analysis, academic research, and historical market studies. Access this data via our API.
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Brent is the reference price for roughly two-thirds of internationally traded crude oil. The name covers a family of related instruments - dated physical cargoes, forward contracts and ICE futures - that are frequently conflated. This page serves a spot-basis Brent price assembled from multiple independent sources. The sections below define the instrument family, describe how multiple sources behave in practice, and state how spot relates to the futures curve.
One name, several instruments
Dated Brent is an assessment of physical North Sea cargoes loading within a defined window. Brent futures are ICE contracts for specific delivery months, each with its own expiry. A continuous or front-month series stitches successive contracts together. These are related but distinct time series: they differ most visibly near contract expiry and when the curve is steep. A Brent quote is fully specified only when it names which instrument it is.
This page serves a spot-basis price. For contract-month analysis, the futures codes (BRENT_FUTURES_YYYY_MM) carry each delivery month separately, and the curve endpoints report the term structure computed from them.
What multiple sources actually show
We collect Brent from several independent sources concurrently. They do not always agree. On 2026-08-04 the spread between the highest and lowest concurrent source values reached 7.63 dollars per barrel. Disagreement of this kind is a property of the market data ecosystem, not a defect in any single feed: sources sample different instruments, at different times, through different methodologies.
Method note: we treat inter-source spread as a first-class quality signal rather than averaging it away. Averaging discards the only evidence that something has diverged. The served Brent value comes from a deliberate benchmark selection rather than whichever source most recently wrote, and the spread between sources is monitored.
Spot, futures and the shape of the curve
When later-dated futures trade above the front month the curve is in contango; when they trade below it, backwardation. There is no single industry-standard tenor pair for making that call: practitioners variously compare the first and second months, the first and sixth, or the first and thirteenth. CME Group research has used month-one versus month-six; the EIA has preferred month-one versus month-thirteen. A contango claim is therefore only interpretable alongside the tenor pair that produced it. Our curve endpoints state theirs.
A practical trap in futures-derived series: vendor feeds can continue to echo a contract after it stops trading. In August 2026 we measured a major vendor re-publishing an expired contract's final price thirteen days after its last trade, to the cent. Our pipeline now excludes contracts whose own market has dropped them, using relative tick density rather than calendar rules - expiry schedules differ by contract, and a calendar rule that is correct for one family is wrong for another.
Brent Crude Oil FAQ
Why does your Brent price differ from the ICE front-month future?
Because they are different instruments. This page serves a spot-basis assessment; the ICE front month is a futures contract for a specific delivery month. The two converge and diverge as the curve steepens and flattens. Near expiry, or when the curve is steep, differences of a dollar or more are normal.
Your sources disagree. Which one is right?
For an over-the-counter market, sources sampling different instruments at different times can all be internally correct while disagreeing. We surface a deliberately selected benchmark value and monitor the spread between sources as a quality signal. On days when the spread widens materially, that widening is itself information about market conditions or about a source.