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WTI vs Brent Crude Oil Prices

Written by Jere Salmisto, Founder & Quantitative Systems Builder, CalcFi·Reviewed by CalcFi Editorial·Last reviewed 2026-06-02
TL;DR

Crude Oil Price (West Texas Intermediate) is unavailable and Crude Oil Price (Brent) is unavailable as of 2026-06-02. WTI and Brent crude oil benchmarks often diverge. What drives the spread, and what it means for gas prices.

Source: EIA via FRED (DCOILWTICO) · EIA via FRED (DCOILBRENTEU)

Crude Oil Price (West Texas Intermediate)
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Unavailable· no data
2025-052026-05
Crude Oil Price (Brent)
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Unavailable· no data
2025-052026-05

WTI (West Texas Intermediate) and Brent are the two primary global crude oil benchmarks. They usually track each other within 1-3 dollars per barrel, but the spread can widen sharply due to transportation bottlenecks, regional supply shocks, or political events.

From 2011-2014, the WTI-Brent spread exceeded 20 dollars per barrel at times due to US shale production outpacing pipeline capacity from Cushing, Oklahoma. Post-2015, export pipeline buildouts narrowed the spread back to typical single-digit levels.

For US consumers: Brent is actually a better predictor of your gas price than WTI, since much US gasoline is produced from imported Brent-linked crude. When you see Brent rising, expect gas prices to follow within 2-4 weeks.

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Sources & Citations

  1. Crude Oil Price (West Texas Intermediate) — EIA via FRED (DCOILWTICO) — fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DCOILWTICO
  2. Crude Oil Price (Brent) — EIA via FRED (DCOILBRENTEU) — fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DCOILBRENTEU
  3. FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) — time-series archive for US macro indicators — fred.stlouisfed.org
  4. Bureau of Economic Analysis — GDP, personal income, regional data — bea.gov
Methodology & Assumptions

Values for Crude Oil Price (West Texas Intermediate) come from EIA via FRED (DCOILWTICO)[1]; values for Crude Oil Price (Brent) come from EIA via FRED (DCOILBRENTEU)[2]. Both series are fetched at build time and refreshed every 24 hours via ISR.

The daily cadence for Crude Oil Price (West Texas Intermediate) and daily cadence for Crude Oil Price (Brent) mean the live value you see reflects the most recent public release, not a real-time quote.

Historical charts show the last 10 years (~260 trading days for daily series). Sparklines are visually uniform; small moves may be compressed.

Correlation and spread analyses (where present in the narrative) use Pearson correlation over the overlapping window.

CalcFi republishes publicly available government economic data[3][4] and does not provide financial advice.

Last reviewed reflects the most recent data point across both series; on ISR revalidation the visible date updates when new data arrives.

Data sourced from [1] EIA via FRED (DCOILWTICO) and [2] EIA via FRED (DCOILBRENTEU). Published by CalcFi Editorial. Last reviewed 2026-06-02. CalcFi publishes publicly available government economic data and does not provide financial advice.