Brent Crude is the biggest of the many major classifications of
crude oil consisting of Brent Crude, Brent
Sweet Light Crude,
Oseberg,
Ekofisk, and
Forties (BFOE). Brent Crude is sourced from the
North Sea. The Brent Crude
oil marker is also known as Brent Blend, London Brent and Brent petroleum. It is used to price two thirds of the world's
internationally traded crude oil supplies.
The other well-known classifications (also called references or
benchmarks) are the
OPEC Reference Basket,
Dubai Crude and
West Texas Intermediate .
The name "Brent" comes from the naming policy of Shell UK Exploration and Production, operating on behalf of
ExxonMobil and
Royal Dutch Shell, which originally named all of its fields after birds (in this case the
Brent Goose).
Petroleum production from
Europe,
Africa and the
Middle East flowing West tends to be priced relative to this oil, i.e. it forms a benchmark. However, large parts of Europe now receive their oil from
Russia.
Characteristics
Brent blend is a
light crude oil, though not as light as
WTI. It contains approximately 0.37% of
sulphur, classifying it as
sweet crude, yet again not as sweet as wti. Brent is suitable for production of
petrol and
middle distillates. It is typically refined in Northwest Europe.
Brent Crude has an
API gravity of around 38.06 and a
specific gravity of around 0.835.
Trading
The symbol for Brent crude is LCO. It was originally traded on the open-outcry
International Petroleum Exchange in...
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