Crude oil: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Brent crude is set by OPEC+ output decisions, US shale growth, world demand for transport fuels and petrochemicals, inventories and geopolitical risk. It trades on futures markets in dollars and is the main global benchmark for physical oil.
Market price World Bank Pink Sheet: Crude oil, Brent $/bbl · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026What its price moves with
Selected linkCrude oil and Refining and reforming
Monthly changes 0.79 strong correlation 12-month changes 0.96 strong correlation Last 5 years 0.76 monthly changes Lead or lag none No clear lead or lag Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Crude oil ≈ 0.223 × (Refining and reforming)1.02 R² 0.87 On this fit, a 10% higher refining and reforming price goes with a 10.3% higher crude oil price over the long run. Units: $/bbl and index.Chart: Crude oil and Refining and reforming prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, log scale
Both prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, on a log scale so equal percentage moves look the same size.Chart: Crude oil price against Refining and reforming price, monthly, log scales, with fitted line
Each dot is one month; paler dots are older (2006), darker dots recent (2026); the ringed dot is the latest month. The dashed line is the fitted price function. Both axes are logarithmic.Refiners turn crude into petrol, diesel and jet fuel, and crude is by far their largest cost, so product prices track it closely. The US refinery index moves with Brent almost one for one: monthly changes correlate at 0.79 and yearly changes at 0.96.
strong co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsRenewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel compete with, and are priced against, fossil diesel and jet fuel. The proxy here is the US diesel index, which follows crude closely, with monthly moves correlating at 0.70 and yearly moves at 0.93.
moderate co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsNaphtha from crude is the main ethylene feedstock outside the US, so crude sets much of the cost of the basic building block of plastics. The petrochemical index follows oil at 0.52 monthly and 0.89 yearly; recent years are looser (0.33) as cheap US ethane gained share.
moderate co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsMost Asian LNG is bought on long-term contracts that set the gas price as a share of a lagged oil price. That shows in the data: monthly moves hardly correlate (-0.06) but yearly changes correlate at 0.56, and oil leads Japan's LNG price by about 4 months.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsGas and oil compete in heating, power and industry, and older European gas contracts were indexed to oil. As hub trading took over the tie weakened: monthly moves correlate at only 0.16, though yearly changes still correlate at 0.60 because both follow the same energy cycle.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsTanker rates rise when more oil is shipped over longer routes, for instance when sanctions reroute cargoes away from their usual buyers. The proxy is a broad US deep-sea freight index, so the monthly link is slight (0.16), though yearly moves correlate at 0.51.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsHow to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.