WTI, West Texas Intermediate crude oil, is a common crude oil in North America. Due to the global military and economic capabilities of the United States, WTI crude oil has become the benchmark for global crude oil pricing. In order to unify the domestic crude oil pricing system, the United States takes the WTI crude oil contract listed in the New York Mercantile Exchange as the pricing benchmark. Crude oil, US dollar and grain are the three main means for the United States to influence and control the global economy and financial market.

Light crude oil editor

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is a word translated from English West Texas Intermediate into Chinese. Also known as Texas Light Sweet (1), it is one of the two most marketable crude oils, and the other is Brent crude oil. West Texas crude oil usually refers to crude oil imported from Canada and the Gulf of Mexico and then transported to the midwest and coastal areas of the United States for refining. This kind of crude oil is also called light and low sulfur crude oil, which means that the crude oil has low viscosity and low sulfur content, accounting for only 0.24%. West Dezhou Intermediate crude oil is suitable for refining gasoline, diesel oil, hot fuel oil and aircraft fuel oil, which can increase the output value of refineries and is a kind of crude oil with high utilization rate.

Benchmark crude oil editing

The internationally influential benchmark crude oil is Brent crude oil in Europe, and the Brent crude oil contract listed on ICE (Intercontinental Exchange) also determines the price of Brent crude oil. Brent crude oil follows the trend of WTI crude oil most of the time, and sometimes deviates from or affects WTI oil price. In addition, Oman crude oil in Dubai, Tabusse crude oil in Asia and Bonny crude oil in Africa are all regional benchmark crude oils, but because of their small influence, they follow the trend of WTI and Brent crude oil most of the time, so they are rarely used as reference.

The US government controls the price of WTI crude oil futures contracts in many ways, including the conventional energy data of the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) every Wednesday and the weekly position report of CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission). Since 2008, there have been many obvious deviations between WTI price and spot market. This has aroused the dissatisfaction of international crude oil spot traders and threatened to give up WTI pricing. At the end of 2009, Saudi Arabia proposed to abandon WTI pricing and change to a package of oil prices of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. However, in the short term, despite the controversy, WTI remains as unshakable as the US dollar.