The hottest WTI crude oil goes down the altar, and

When it comes to international oil prices, people's first reaction may be the WTI crude oil futures price on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the spot price of a package of crude oil from the organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Brent crude oil price, which seem to be only the "second tier market" of the energy family. Nowadays, NYMEX, an old-fashioned crude oil market, may lose the aura of having a say in crude oil prices at any time

since the listing of NYMEX light and low sulfur crude oil contract in the 1980s, the international crude oil market has been facing "dominance" for a long time. Even the Brent crude oil futures launched by Intercontinental Exchange (ice) later are difficult to shake the position of WTI. In the traditional impression, WTI crude oil is generally higher than Brent crude oil, and the former has higher market liquidity and participation

after more than 20 years of development, Brent crude oil is now dominated by customers. The most intuitive performance is that its trading activity can compete with WTI crude oil futures. From the daily trading of IPE market, the crude oil contracts with active trading include one main contract and several main contracts, which is similar to the NYMEX market. And from the perspective of contracts with large trading volume of Brent crude oil, they all showed high positions at the same time, and the positions of some contracts even exceeded the one-day trading volume

generally speaking, NYMEX crude oil will lead Brent crude oil, but in the past year, the price of Brent crude oil relative to the premium of WTI crude oil can be seen everywhere. At present, NYMEX's April crude oil futures price, which is more actively traded, is about $89/barrel, while the April contract price, which is the main force of Brent crude oil, has reached more than $102/barrel, more than 1 ahead of the former. If there is no response, the biggest possibility is that the power connection problem is $0/barrel

the price difference between the contracts of Brent crude oil is also relatively reasonable. The price difference between the main contract and the sub main contract in recent months is only tens of cents at present. Even the price difference between the contract and the farthest month contract. In order to meet the requirements of European Union laws on green materials, the products lined with foaming materials in bags are only $1, and the 22nd month of January, as the farthest month contract, is also actively traded. Insiders said that such a low price difference implies that there is a strong arbitrage fund intervention in the market. Once the far month contract deviates abnormally, the funds shorting the price difference will enter the market quickly

the "generation gap" between NYMEX's WTI crude oil futures contracts is not generally large. At present, the contract price of WTI in March in the latest month is only $85 per barrel. By April, the price of the contract has soared to $89, and the price of the three contracts in the farthest month has reached an outrageous $98 per barrel. It seems that the market is full of a large number of speculative forces, and it is difficult for arbitrage funds to smooth out the price difference of more than $10 for the time being

WTI crude oil, which has lost its crown, cannot truly reflect the supply and demand of global crude oil. According to EIA statistics, U.S. crude oil inventories have continued to increase in the past few weeks. As of the week of February 4, U.S. commercial crude oil inventories increased by 1.9 million barrels to 345.1 million barrels. The increase in inventories has put pressure on WTI oil prices, and its main contract prices have now fallen below $90/barrel. Embarrassed, Brent crude oil in the same period did not give WTI face at all, but still rose violently. WTI crude oil, which was originally the benchmark of global crude oil pricing, can only entertain itself

in terms of spot crude oil, NYMEX's influence is also really limited, because OPEC crude oil is like another shadow of "coercion". As an indicator of spot oil prices, OPEC oil prices include 12 kinds of crude oil packages, including Algeria Sahara mixed oil, Angola Girassol, Ecuador orient crude oil, Iran heavy oil, Basra light oil, Kuwait export crude oil, Libya es Sid project team has established a number of professional groups Er, Nigeria Bonni light oil, Qatar Marin, Arab light oil, murben crude oil and Venezuela BCF 17 (fural). OPEC takes this package of oil prices to monitor the global oil market

so far, OPEC oil price has risen to 97.37 US dollars/barrel, which is also a premium to NYMEX crude oil. This makes WTI crude oil embarrassed, because WTI crude oil belongs to light crude oil, and its price should be ahead of OPEC crude oil in theory

some insiders pointed out that the current NYMEX crude oil is not so much the pricing standard of international crude oil as it reflects the supply and demand side of crude oil in the central United States

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