Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that consist of refined crude oil.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is an organization enabling the co-operation of leading oil-producing countries in order to collectively influence the global oil market and maximize profit. It was founded on 14 September 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members. The organization, which currently comprises 12 member countries, accounted for an estimated 30 percent of global oil production. A 2022 report further details that OPEC member countries were responsible for approximately 38 percent of it. Additionally, it is estimated that 79.5 percent of the world's proven oil reserves are located within OPEC nations, with the Middle East alone accounting for 67.2 percent of OPEC's total reserves.
S&P Global Inc. is an American publicly traded corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. Its primary areas of business are financial information and analytics. It is the parent company of S&P Global Ratings, S&P Global Market Intelligence, S&P Global Mobility, S&P Global Engineering Solutions, S&P Global Sustainable1, and S&P Global Commodity Insights, CRISIL, and is the majority owner of the S&P Dow Jones Indices joint venture. "S&P" is a shortening of "Standard and Poor's".
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is a grade or mix of crude oil; the term is also used to refer to the spot price, the futures price, or assessed price for that oil. In colloquial usage, WTI usually refers to the WTI Crude Oil futures contract traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). The WTI oil grade is also known as Texas light sweet. Oil produced from any location can be considered WTI if the oil meets the required qualifications. Spot and futures prices of WTI are used as a benchmark in oil pricing. This grade is described as light crude oil because of its low density and sweet because of its low sulfur content.
Brent Crude may refer to any or all of the components of the Brent Complex, a physically and financially traded oil market based around the North Sea of Northwest Europe; colloquially, Brent Crude usually refers to the price of the ICE Brent Crude Oil futures contract or the contract itself. The original Brent Crude referred to a trading classification of sweet light crude oil first extracted from the Brent oilfield in the North Sea in 1976. As production from the Brent oilfield declined to zero in 2021, crude oil blends from other oil fields have been added to the trade classification. The current Brent blend consists of crude oil produced from the Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk, Troll oil fields and oil drilled from Midland, Texas in the Permian Basin.
From the mid-1980s to September 2003, the inflation-adjusted price of a barrel of crude oil on NYMEX was generally under US$25/barrel in 2008 dollars. During 2003, the price rose above $30, reached $60 by 11 August 2005, and peaked at $147.30 in July 2008. Commentators attributed these price increases to many factors, including Middle East tension, soaring demand from China, the falling value of the U.S. dollar, reports showing a decline in petroleum reserves, worries over peak oil, and financial speculation.
OMV is an Austrian multinational integrated oil, gas and petrochemical company which is headquartered in Vienna, Austria. The company is listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange. In the 2021 Forbes Global 2000, OMV Group was ranked as the 413th -largest public company in the world.
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation is Kuwait's major national oil company, headquartered in Kuwait City.
Argus is an independent provider of price information, consultancy services, conferences, market data and business intelligence for the global petroleum, natural gas, electricity, emissions, biofuels, biomass, LPG, metals, chemicals, fertilizers, agriculture and coal industries.
The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Reference Basket, Tapis crude, Bonny Light, Urals oil, Isthmus, and Western Canadian Select (WCS). Oil prices are determined by global supply and demand, rather than any country's domestic production level.
A benchmark crude or marker crude is a crude oil that serves as a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil. There are three primary benchmarks, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Blend, and Dubai Crude. Other well-known blends include the OPEC Reference Basket used by OPEC, Tapis Crude which is traded in Singapore, Western Canadian Select used in Canada, Bonny Light used in Nigeria, Urals oil used in Russia and Mexico's Isthmus. Energy Intelligence Group publishes a handbook which identified 195 major crude streams or blends in its 2011 edition.
The Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) is a commodity exchange based in Dubai currently listing its flagship futures contract, DME Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract (OQD). Launched in 2007, the DME aims to become the crude oil pricing benchmark for the Asian market with its Oman Crude Oil contract, like the Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE) North Sea Brent is to Europe and the New York Mercantile Exchange’s (NYMEX) West Texas Intermediate is to North America.
The Japan Crude Cocktail (JCC) is the informal nickname given to the pricing index of Crude Oil used in most East Asian countries. The JCC is the average price of customs-cleared crude oil imports into Japan and is published by the Petroleum Association of Japan. The official name of the JCC is the Japan Customs-cleared Crude Oil Price. The valuation of the JCC closely reflects the market state of supply and demand. Clear fluctuations in JCC pricing can be linked to distinct events such as the 2007-08 Global Financial Crisis and the 2011 Fukushima Disaster.
The 1980s oil glut was a significant surplus of crude oil caused by falling demand following the 1970s energy crisis. The world price of oil had peaked in 1980 at over US$35 per barrel ; it fell in 1986 from $27 to below $10. The glut began in the early 1980s as a result of slowed economic activity in industrial countries due to the crises of the 1970s, especially in 1973 and 1979, and the energy conservation spurred by high fuel prices. The inflation-adjusted real 2004 dollar value of oil fell from an average of $78.2 in 1981 to an average of $26.8 per barrel in 1986.
An energy market is a type of commodity market on which electricity, heat, and fuel products are traded. Natural gas and electricity are examples of products traded on an energy market. Other energy commodities include: oil, coal, carbon emissions, nuclear power, solar energy and wind energy. Due to the difficulty in storing and transporting energy, current and future prices in energy are rarely linked. This is because energy purchased at a current price is difficult to store and then sell at a later date. There are two types of market schemes : spot market and forward market.
From the mid-1980s to September 2003, the inflation adjusted price of a barrel of crude oil on NYMEX was generally under $25/barrel. Then, during 2004, the price rose above $40, and then $60. A series of events led the price to exceed $60 by August 11, 2005, leading to a record-speed hike that reached $75 by the middle of 2006. Prices then dropped back to $60/barrel by the early part of 2007 before rising steeply again to $92/barrel by October 2007, and $99.29/barrel for December futures in New York on November 21, 2007. Throughout the first half of 2008, oil regularly reached record high prices. Prices on June 27, 2008, touched $141.71/barrel, for August delivery in the New York Mercantile Exchange, amid Libya's threat to cut output, and OPEC's president predicted prices may reach $170 by the Northern summer. The highest recorded price per barrel maximum of $147.02 was reached on July 11, 2008. After falling below $100 in the late summer of 2008, prices rose again in late September. On September 22, oil rose over $25 to $130 before settling again to $120.92, marking a record one-day gain of $16.37. Electronic crude oil trading was temporarily halted by NYMEX when the daily price rise limit of $10 was reached, but the limit was reset seconds later and trading resumed. By October 16, prices had fallen again to below $70, and on November 6 oil closed below $60. Then in 2009, prices went slightly higher, although not to the extent of the 2005–2007 crisis, exceeding $100 in 2011 and most of 2012. Since late 2013 the oil price has fallen below the $100 mark, plummeting below the $50 mark one year later.
S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC is a joint venture between S&P Global, the CME Group, and News Corp that was announced in 2011 and later launched in 2012. It produces, maintains, licenses, and markets stock market indices as benchmarks and as the basis of investable products, such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs), mutual funds, and structured products. The company currently has employees in 15 cities worldwide, including New York, London, Frankfurt, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, Beijing, and Dubai.
Verisk Analytics, Inc. is an American multinational data analytics and risk assessment firm based in Jersey City, New Jersey, with customers in insurance, natural resources, financial services, government, and risk management sectors. The company uses proprietary data sets and industry expertise to provide predictive analytics and decision support consultations in areas including fraud prevention, actuarial science, insurance coverage, fire protection, catastrophe and weather risk, and data management.
Wood Mackenzie, also known as WoodMac, is a global provider of data and analytics for the energy transition. Wood Mackenzie’s services include data, analytics, insight, events and consultancy across the renewables, energy and natural resources sectors.
Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) is a price reporting agency which provides information that is used for commercial contracts and trade settlement related to petroleum, gasoline, diesel, ethanol, biodiesel, LP-gas, jet fuel, crude, natural gas, petrochemicals, recycled plastics, refinery feedstocks, residual fuel, and kerosene. It is based in Rockville, Maryland and has offices in New Jersey, Houston, Texas, Minnesota, and internationally in Sweden, Romania, Singapore, and Japan.
