Reforming the Dated Brent Oil Benchmark

Subject . The 2023 reform of the Dated Brent benchmark, one of the world’s most important crude oil pricing indicators, marked a significant development in the global commodities market. As part of this reform, the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Midland grade was added to the Brent basket. Objective. This article examines the goals and intentions of the reform’s initiators and developers who revised the Dated Brent assessment methodology in 2023. It also explores the key factors that made the reform possible. These include the depletion of North Sea oil fields — which for decades served as the physical basis for Dated Brent — the surge in U.S. production of light, low-sulfur crude oil, and European Union sanctions against the Russian oil industry. These sanctions have triggered a sharp increase in U.S. hydrocarbon exports to Europe. Findings . The study demonstrates that the reform was also driven by unsuccessful attempts to create an influential oil benchmark based on U.S. crude exported from Gulf of Mexico ports.