Brent vs WTI: what separates the two oil benchmarks

Side by side

Why Brent usually costs more

Quality isn't the reason; if anything, WTI is slightly easier to turn into gasoline and diesel. The premium comes from geography. A barrel at Cushing still has to travel by pipeline to the Gulf Coast and then by tanker before it can compete with North Sea or West African crude in Europe or Asia. That trip costs money, and when the system runs smoothly WTI's discount roughly pays for it.

On top of transport, the spread responds to:

• US inventories, especially at Cushing. When storage at the hub fills up, nearby WTI weakens against Brent; when it drains, WTI firms. In April 2020, with tanks close to full, the expiring WTI contract settled below zero for a day while Brent stayed positive.
• Export capacity and freight. Pipeline space to the coast, dock capacity and tanker rates all change what it costs to get US crude abroad.
• Seaborne supply shocks. Disruptions in the Middle East, Africa or Russia hit the waterborne market first, which tends to lift Brent relative to WTI.
• Contract timing. Brent's front contract expires earlier, so for most of each month it is for delivery one month later than WTI's. When later months are cheaper (backwardation), that mismatch shrinks the quoted spread; when later months cost more (contango), it widens it.

How the spread has behaved

For decades WTI usually traded a little above Brent, in line with its slightly better quality. That changed around 2010 and 2011, when fast-growing output from the Bakken, the Permian and other US shale regions met a pipeline network that still carried oil into Cushing rather than out of it. Crude backed up in Oklahoma, and WTI's discount to Brent widened to more than $20 a barrel at times in 2011.

New pipelines, including the 2012 reversal of the Seaway line to carry crude from Cushing to the Gulf Coast, eased the bottleneck. In December 2015 the US lifted its ban on most crude oil exports, letting American barrels compete directly in world markets, and in 2023 WTI Midland, a US grade exported from the Gulf Coast, joined the basket used to assess Brent. Since then the gap has mostly tracked the cost of moving US crude to export docks and across the Atlantic, widening when seaborne supply is disrupted and narrowing when US stocks run low.

The EIA publishes daily spot prices for both crudes going back decades, if you want to check the history yourself.

Which benchmark matters for you

• US drivers and fuel buyers: WTI is the headline US price, but coastal refineries buy crude at world prices and gasoline is traded internationally, so US pump prices often follow Brent at least as closely as WTI.
• Europe, Africa and most tanker trade: Brent is the reference, and many other crudes are sold at a stated premium or discount to it.
• Asia: most Middle East crude sold to Asian refiners is priced against Dubai and Oman, which the app tracks as daily closing prices.

Watching the spread in the app

The Oil Spreads card on the Prices tab of Oil Prices Live shows Brent minus WTI in dollars and as a percentage, and it is part of the free version. With Pro you can add your own pairs from eight crudes: Brent, WTI, Urals, Alaska North Slope, the OPEC basket, Oman, Dubai and Western Canadian Select. Brent against Dubai, for example, shows the gap between the Atlantic and Middle East benchmarks. Spreads that include a daily-close benchmark update when that price is published each trading day.

Alerts are set on single prices, not on the spread itself. To be told when the gap moves, set one price alert on each benchmark. For the outright prices and what they mean, see the oil price today.