West Texas Intermediate

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Medium-term price of oil
Medium-term price of oil

West Texas Intermediate (WTI), also known as Texas Light Sweet, is a type of crude oil used as a benchmark in oil pricing and the underlying commodity of New York Mercantile Exchange's oil futures contracts.

This oil type is often referenced in North American news reports about oil prices, alongside North Sea Brent Crude. Other important oil markers include the Dubai Crude and the OPEC Reference Basket.

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[edit] Characteristics

WTI is a light crude, lighter than Brent Crude. It contains about 0.24% sulfur, rating it a sweet crude, again sweeter than Brent. Its properties and production site make it ideal for being refined in the United States, mostly in the Midwest and Gulf Coast regions.

WTI has an API gravity of around 39.6 (specific gravity of around 0.827).

[edit] Pricing

Main article: Price of petroleum

Historical price data for WTI can be found at a website maintained by Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy of the US government. It is listed as WTI, Cushing, Oklahoma [1].

Typical price difference per barrel is about $1 more than Brent, and $2 more than OPEC Basket.

[edit] 2007

Although WTI is supposed to gain a higher price than that of Brent crude, on May 24, it was priced at $63.58 per barrel as against $71.39 per barrel for Brent (Bloomberg). There seem to be other factors leading to the change in price differential. On April 13, 2007, WTI Crude at Cushing may have temporarily lost its status as a gauge of world oil prices[1]. A large stockpile of oil at the Cushing, Oklahoma storage and pricing facility (mainly due to a refinery shutdown[2]) has caused prices to be artificially depressed at the Cushing pricing point. While stockpiles remain high, refiners are coming back to full capacity to meet early demands for summer gasoline consumption, which could help return storage to reasonable levels again. [3]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bloomberg.com: Energy
  2. ^ Bloomberg.com: Energy
  3. ^ Oil holds steady as pick-up in gasoline production offsets geopolitical tensions - Forbes.com