Due to the strength of American super crude oil buyers and the influence of New York Futures Exchange itself, crude oil futures trading based on WTI has become the leader in global commodity futures trading volume. Generally speaking, crude oil futures contracts have good liquidity and high price transparency, and are one of the three benchmark prices in the world crude oil market. When the public and the media usually talk about how many dollars the oil price has exceeded, it mainly refers to this price.
However, more than two-thirds of the world's crude oil trading volume is not based on WTI, but on Brent crude oil in the North Sea, which is also light and low in sulfur. On June 23rd, 1988, the London International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) launched Brent crude oil futures contracts, including northwest Europe, the North Sea, the Mediterranean, Africa, Yemen and other countries and regions, all based on this. Because the futures contract meets the needs of the oil industry, it is considered as a "highly flexible tool to avoid risks and transactions" and also ranks among the three major international crude oil prices.
London has thus become one of the three major international crude oil futures trading centers. Brent crude oil futures and spot market constitute Brent crude oil pricing system, covering up to 80% of the global crude oil trading volume. Even today when the price of crude oil in new york is becoming more and more important, about 65% of the global crude oil trading volume is based on Brent crude oil in the North Sea.
The conversion relationship between tons and barrels is: 1 ton (crude oil) =7.33 barrels (crude oil), that is, a barrel is about 136 kg. Although there is a fixed conversion relationship between tons and barrels, because tons are units of mass and barrels are unit of volume, the density of crude oil varies widely, so in crude oil trading, if different units are used for calculation, different results will be obtained.