what is the difference between brent crude and wti crude 
brent crude and wti west texas intermediate crude are the two primary benchmarks for global oil prices when a price of oil per barrel is quoted it is generally referring to one of these two oils and the prices of brent and wti tend to be fairly close to one another the primary differences between the two are location brent crude is drilled in one of the four oil fields in the north sea between england germany and scandinavia wti is drilled from oil wells in the united states transport because brent is drilled from the ocean and is water borne it is less expensive to transport as opposed to the more expensive wti which is transported through pipelines gravity and sweetness brent is considered to be a light oil as measured by density and a sweet oil as measured by sulfur content wti is lighter and has even less sulfur sweeter supply approximately 60 of the world s oil supply comes from brent oil like most commodities the price of brent and wti is driven primarily by supply and demand and is extremely vulnerable to external factors if for example members of opec organization of petroleum exporting countries decide to limit production of oil the global supply will dwindle and the price of brent and wti will rise alternately when oil rich countries opec and others produce excessive amounts of oil the supply outweighs the demand and the prices can drop 