Brent Crude Oil Price & Chart

Brent crude oil: the global oil price benchmark, explained

When the news says "oil hit a new high," the number behind that headline is almost always Brent. Brent crude is the world's most widely used oil benchmark, used to price roughly two-thirds of all internationally traded crude. The live chart above tracks the front-month Brent futures contract in real time, and the technical-analysis summary distills the common signals into a quick read. This page is built for following the market, not for placing trades, so there's nothing to sign up for.

What Brent crude actually is

Brent takes its name from the Brent oil field in the North Sea, discovered by Shell in the early 1970s. The benchmark no longer relies on that single field. Today "Brent" is a blend of several North Sea streams, traditionally the Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk and Troll fields (the so-called BFOE/T basket) from both UK and Norwegian waters, producing on the order of 700,000 to 900,000 barrels per day.

The oil itself is light and sweet, meaning it has relatively low density and low sulfur content. That makes it cheaper and easier to refine into high-value products like gasoline and diesel, which is part of why refiners value it. Brent trades as a futures contract on ICE in London, and the front-month contract is the most liquid. Its combination of deep liquidity, seaborne delivery and decades of use in physical supply contracts is exactly why it became the reference price for crude across Europe, Africa and much of the Middle East.

Brent versus WTI, and the spread between them

The other benchmark you'll hear about is WTI, West Texas Intermediate, the main US grade delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma. Both are light and sweet, but they price different worlds. Brent reflects the seaborne global market, while WTI reflects the American market and is effectively landlocked at an inland hub. You can compare it directly on our WTI crude page.

Because the two track related but distinct supply pictures, traders watch the Brent-WTI spread, simply the price of Brent minus the price of WTI. Brent usually trades at a modest premium to WTI, often a few dollars a barrel, because it's waterborne and easy to ship anywhere by tanker, while WTI carries the cost of moving inland barrels to the coast. The spread is not fixed. A surge in US shale output can flood Cushing and push WTI down relative to Brent, pipeline bottlenecks can do the same, and because Brent sits closer to seaborne supply routes it absorbs geopolitical shocks more directly. When the spread widens or flips, it's usually telling you something about regional supply, export economics or risk concentrated on one side of the Atlantic.

What moves the Brent price

At the simplest level, Brent is supply and demand for a globally shipped commodity, but the levers behind it are worth knowing.

• OPEC+ production policy. OPEC members pump roughly a third of the world's crude and account for around half of all internationally traded oil. When the group and its partners cut output targets, prices tend to rise; when they add barrels, prices tend to soften. Spare capacity, the volume producers could bring online quickly, is watched as a gauge of how tight the market is.
• Global demand. Brent is a bet on the world economy. Strong industrial activity, travel and trade lift consumption; recessions, slowdowns or efficiency gains drag it down. Chinese and broader Asian demand carries particular weight.
• Geopolitics and shipping. Because Brent is seaborne, it reacts sharply to anything that threatens supply lanes. Tension around chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz, which carries a large share of global seaborne oil, or disruptions in the Red Sea can lift Brent by raising shipping risk and tightening available cargoes. Conflicts and sanctions involving major producers add a risk premium fast.
• The US dollar. Oil is priced in dollars, so a stronger dollar tends to weigh on the price (oil becomes more expensive for buyers using other currencies), while a weaker dollar often supports it.

These forces interact, which is why oil can jump on a headline before any demand figure confirms the move. You can see how it sits among related instruments on the all markets overview.

How to read the chart

The chart shows price over time, usually as candlesticks. Each candle covers one slice of time, and its body marks where price opened and closed, while the thin wicks mark the high and low. A run of candles making higher highs and higher lows points to an uptrend; the reverse points down; a sideways drift means the market is undecided. A moving average smooths the line so momentum is easier to see, and support and resistance are levels where buyers or sellers have repeatedly stepped in, acting like a floor and a ceiling until one breaks. Switch the timeframe to fit your question: an intraday view and a multi-year view of the same Brent price tell very different stories. One honest caveat, indicators describe what has already happened. They don't predict, and no setup works every time.

Information only. Nothing on this page is investment advice, and market data can be delayed or imperfect. Do your own research before making any financial decision.

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