Outlook 2024: Brent’s WTI transfusion – A new lease of life or a whole new animal?
With crude production forecast to grow through 2028, what benchmark is going to lead the way?
If there is a second Cold War, then it is in part a struggle between Washington and Moscow for control of Europe’s energy supplies. And the US appears to have just won it. Not only has its crude oil in essence physically replaced all the Urals that Europe stopped buying when Russia invaded Ukraine, but its natural gas—in the form of LNG—has become the replacement of choice for Russian gas. And now US crude West Texas Intermediate (WTI) has reverse-colonised the price of Brent.What was unthinkable as little as six years ago has happened. Europe’s large oil companies, trading houses and refiners have agreed to allow WTI to be included in the mechanism that determines Dated Brent. WTI joined th
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