The world oil industry has a history of 150 years, but the real international crude oil market appeared in the 1970s. That is, since then, the international crude oil pricing mechanism has begun to take shape. At first, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was in a dominant position, but after two oil crises, developed countries led by the United States began to use their financial advantages and economic influence to break the price monopoly of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Especially after the 1990s, oil futures grew rapidly, and the pricing system dominated by futures market was gradually established around the world.

After several rounds of rough seas, three benchmark prices have been gradually established in the international market, namely, wti price in the New York Mercantile Exchange, brentcrudeoil in the North Sea of London International Petroleum Exchange and Dubai crude oil in the Middle East. These prices are divided into spot prices and futures prices. Among them, the crude oil futures contract, which will be delivered roughly next month, is most often adopted because of the huge trading volume.

Brent crude oil in the North Sea is also a kind of light oil, the quality of which is lower than that of West Texas crude oil, but the radiation area is very wide: crude oil produced in Northwest Europe, the Mediterranean and West Africa, as well as crude oil exported to Europe from Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East, all refer to this pricing. It can be said that the international style and highly flexible trading tools of Brent market in London have accumulated reputation, accumulated trading volume and exerted considerable influence in the industry.

As for the crude oil produced by major oil producing countries in the Middle East or exported from the Middle East to Asia, the UAE high-sulfur crude oil is generally used as the benchmark price, so its rise and fall can often reflect the demand for crude oil in Asia. At the same time, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will also launch an official crude oil reference price, which will be comprehensively calculated by the crude oil prices of more than ten member countries such as Kuwait, Nigeria, Zznja and Venezuela, and then a package of reference prices will be obtained.

From the price point of view, unless there is serious economic fluctuation, generally speaking, the price of wti crude oil will be about 5% higher than that of Brent crude oil, and both prices will be higher than that of Dubai crude oil.

In addition, there are two pricing methods in the Far East market. First, the tapis price of Malaysian light crude oil mainly represents the benchmark level of Southeast Asian light crude oil. Secondly, the official price (icp) of Indonesian crude oil, including China's Baihu Oilfield and Daqing Oilfield, will refer to its price.