Commodity
Crude oil
Crude oil is priced against a handful of regional benchmarks rather than one global figure. Brent, lifted from the North Sea, is the one most often quoted for cargoes outside the Americas, and it is the benchmark used here.
Price
What it is used for
- Transport fuels: petrol, diesel, jet fuel and marine fuel
- Petrochemical feedstock for plastics and fertilisers
- Lubricants, bitumen and industrial heating
Supply
Supply is managed rather than purely geological: OPEC and its partners adjust output to defend a price, which means the figure reflects policy as much as it reflects what is in the ground. Exploration licences in frontier basins can take a decade to reach a first well.
Principal producing countries: United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Canada, Iraq.
Producer list from US Energy Information Administration, international petroleum production, checked 13 September 2026.