Crude oil: Trading
How a few benchmarks price every barrel on Earth
What this tab covers How and where it is bought and sold: who buys and sells, exchanges and benchmarks, contract types, the big trading houses and how prices are discovered.Physical crude is priced as a differential to a few benchmarks: Brent for waterborne crude, WTI in the US and Dubai or Oman for Gulf sales to Asia. Geman shows how dated Brent rests on a basket of North Sea streams assessed by Platts, with forwards, contracts for difference and swaps layered on top. ICE Brent and NYMEX WTI futures are the most liquid oil contracts; Shanghai's INE trades a yuan crude future. Trading houses such as Vitol, Trafigura and Glencore arbitrage grades, places and time, storing oil when futures sit above spot (Blas & Farchy).
Where it is bought (buyers)
- Refiners in China, the US, India, South Korea, Japan and Europe buy crude; China took 24.9% and India 10.8% of crude import value in 2024 (UN Comtrade)
- Indian state refiners IOC, BPCL and HPCL buy on term contracts with Saudi Aramco, Iraq's SOMO and ADNOC plus spot tenders; Reliance and Nayara buy spot and from traders, including discounted Russian Urals since 2022
Where it is sold (sellers)
- National oil companies of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait and Russia sell under official selling prices (OSPs) set monthly
- US, Canadian, Brazilian, Norwegian and Guyanese producers sell into the Atlantic Basin and to Asia; Saudi Arabia supplied 18.8% of crude export value in 2024 (UN Comtrade)
Exchanges and benchmarks
| Venue | Contract | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ICE Futures Europe | Brent Crude futures, 1,000 bbl, cash-settled on the ICE Brent Index | World's main benchmark; over half of internationally traded crude is priced off the Brent complex (Geman 2005) |
| CME NYMEX | WTI Light Sweet Crude (CL), 1,000 bbl, physical delivery at Cushing, Oklahoma | US benchmark and most traded oil futures contract |
| Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) | Medium sour crude (SC), 1,000 bbl, yuan-denominated | Asia's largest crude futures; delivery into bonded tanks in China |
| ICE Futures Abu Dhabi | Murban crude futures, 1,000 bbl, physical delivery at Fujairah | Sets ADNOC's Murban OSP |
| MCX (India) | Crude Oil futures, 100 bbl, rupee-denominated, settled against NYMEX WTI | Main Indian venue for hedging and speculation on crude |
Contract types
- Term contracts priced at OSP differentials to Dubai/Oman (Asia), Brent (Europe) or ASCI (US)
- Spot cargoes priced on Dated Brent averages around bill-of-lading dates (Geman 2005)
- Brent forwards, contracts for difference (CFDs) and swaps for hedging timing risk
- Exchange-for-physical (EFP) linking futures and physical cargoes
Top trading houses
- Vitol
- Trafigura
- Glencore
- Gunvor
- Mercuria
- Unipec (Sinopec)
- Aramco Trading
- Shell Trading
How prices are discovered
- S&P Global Platts Dated Brent assessment, which since June 2023 includes US WTI Midland in the basket
- Platts Dubai and Oman partials for Middle East crude to Asia
- Argus assessments (WTI Houston, Urals, ASCI)
- Saudi Aramco monthly OSPs, the reference for most Gulf term crude