what is crude oil 
crude oil is one of the most important commodities traded on the open market it is unrefined petroleum that is used to make diesel gasoline and other fossil fuels because crude oil is a nonrenewable source in recent years much progress has made in finding alternative energy sources including solar and wind which will never be in danger of running out as a result it is difficult to know how much longer crude oil will be considered a critical commodity however for now it certainly is and many countries are major suppliers including the united states russia and saudi arabia crude oil prices generally reflect wti west texas intermediate oil which is primarily drilled in the united states and the european brent crude the third major benchmark is the opec basket like most commodities the price of crude oil is driven primarily by supply and demand and is extremely vulnerable to external factors at times for example members of opec organization of petroleum exporting countries have decided to limit production of oil causing the global supply to dwindle and the price of oil to rise alternately when oil rich countries opec and others are producing excessive amounts of oil the supply outweighs the demand and the prices can drop 