Crude Oil Benchmark Blends

Crude oil is priced in terms of regional blends, each with different characteristics. Traders follow certain blends that reflect the overall value of oil. From about 161 different types of crude oil traded all over the world, the four primary benchmarks are noteworthy to mention.

This blend refers to a light, sweet crude from 15 different oil fields in the North Sea. When UK and other European media reports on crude oil price they refer to a barrel of Brent blend crude oil sold at London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE).

This benchmark refers to the U.S. based light and sweet crude oil traded in New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). Throughout our discussion on dollar-oil correlation, we refer to this WTI index for oil and USDX for dollar index.

This benchmark refers to Dubai based light but sour crude oil.

This benchmark refers to the OPEC - an organization of countries that produce oil - crude basket made up of 13 different regional oils viz: Algeria's Saharan Blend, Angola's Girassol Ecuador's Oriente, Indonesia's Minas, Iran's Iran Heavy, Iraq's Basra Light, Kuwait's Kuwait Export, Libya's Es Sider, Nigeria's Bonny Light, Qatar's Qatar Marine, Saudi Arabia's Arab Light, the United Arab Emirates' Murban, and Venezuela's BCF 17.