In the international

petroleum industry The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The larg ...

, crude oil products are traded on various

oil bourse An oil bourse is a commodities exchange where energy commodities such as crude oil and natural gas are traded. Examples include the New York Mercantile Exchange and the Intercontinental Exchange. In 2005, an Iranian oil bourse was announced and ...

s based on established chemical profiles, delivery locations, and financial terms. The chemical profiles, or

crude oil assay A crude oil assay is the chemical evaluation of crude oil feedstocks by petroleum testing laboratories. Each crude oil type has unique molecular and chemical characteristics. No two crude oil types are identical and there are crucial differences in ...

s, specify important properties such as the oil's

API gravity The American Petroleum Institute gravity, or API gravity, is a measure of how heavy or light a petroleum liquid is compared to water: if its API gravity is greater than 10, it is lighter and floats on water; if less than 10, it is heavier and sink ...

. The delivery locations are usually sea ports close to the

oil field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presen ...

s from which the crude was obtained (and new fields are constantly being explored), and the pricing is usually quoted based on FOB (''free on board'', without consideration of final delivery costs).

Benchmarks

The three most quoted oil products are

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

West Texas Intermediate West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is a grade or mix of crude oil; the term is also used to refer to the spot price, the futures price, or assessed price for that oil. In colloquial usage, WTI usually refers to the WTI Crude Oil futures contract tr ...

crude (WTI),

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

Brent Crude Brent Crude may refer to any or all of the components of the Brent Complex, a physically and financially traded oil market based around the North Sea of Northwest Europe; colloquially, Brent Crude usually refers to the price of the ICE (Intercon ...

, and the UAE Dubai Crude, and their pricing is used as a barometer for the entire petroleum industry, although, in total, there are 46 key oil exporting countries. Brent Crude is typically priced at about $2 over the WTI Spot price, which is typically priced $5 to $6 above the EIA's Imported Refiner Acquisition Cost (IRAC) and OPEC Basket prices. WTI and Brent are quoted FOB specific locations, not FOB the oilfields. For WTI, the delivery point is Cushing, OK; for Brent, it is

Sullom Voe Sullom Voe is an inlet of the North Sea between the parishes of Delting and Northmavine in Shetland, Scotland. It is a location of the Sullom Voe oil terminal and Shetland Gas Plant. The word Voe is from the Old Norse ' and denotes a small b ...

, located in

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the n ...

, an island archipelago north of mainland Scotland. Although

s evaluate various chemical properties of the oil, the two most important properties determining a crude's value are its density (measured as API specific gravity) and its sulphur content (measured per mass). Crude oil is considered "

heavy Heavy may refer to: Measures * Heavy (aeronautics), a term used by pilots and air traffic controllers to refer to aircraft capable of 300,000 lbs or more takeoff weight * Heavy, a characterization of objects with substantial weight * Heavy, ...

" if it has long hydrocarbon chains, or "

light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 t ...

" if it has short hydrocarbon chains: an API gravity of 34 or higher is "light", between 31 and 33 is "medium", and 30 or below is "heavy". Crude is considered "

sweet Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, ketone ...

" if it is low in sulphur content (< 0.5%/weight), or "

sour The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste (flavor). Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor ...

" if high (> 1.0%/weight). Generally, the higher the API gravity (the "lighter" it is), the more valuable the crude.

List of crude oil products

References

Sources

U.S. Energy Information Administration: World Crude Oil Prices

BP Crude GradesIntertek: Crude Oil Grades and TypesMeGlobalOil: Carriage of Heavy Grade OilStatoil.com: Crude oil assaysEnergyIntel.com: The Crude Oils and their Key CharacteristicsCapline system crude oil properties and quality indicators
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crude oil products * Petroleum industry Energy-related lists