Brent Crude Oil Price Today

The Brent spot price was $120.03 per barrel for the week ending October 2, 2026, rose $2.95 ( +2.52%) from the prior week, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's weekly petroleum data, refreshed by PetroEyes on October 11, 2026. The four-week average sits at $118.27 per barrel, and the benchmark has traded between $60.83 and $124.61 per barrel over the past year. ICE Brent futures, the contract the world prices seaborne crude against, last quoted $105.43 per barrel in PetroEyes' market feed (updated October 11, 2026, +0.68% on the day). This page explains what the Brent price is, how the weekly spot figure differs from the futures quote, and what genuinely moves the global crude benchmark.

1. What the Brent price is

Brent is a light, low-sulfur ("sweet") crude loaded from fields in the North Sea. It is the pricing reference for most of the world's internationally traded crude: cargoes in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia are typically priced at a differential to Brent, which is why it is called the global benchmark. The headline futures contract trades on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in London, and its settlement price feeds into pricing formulas on every continent.

The physical benchmark is assessed off a basket of North Sea grades, historically Brent, Forties, Oseberg, and Ekofisk. In 2023 the assessment basket was expanded to include WTI Midland cargoes delivered into Rotterdam, the largest structural change to the benchmark in decades, because North Sea production alone had shrunk to the point where the physical base looked thin relative to the financial position built on top of it. The figure at the top of this page is the EIA weekly Brent spot price: the average cash price for physical Brent over a finished week, as published in the EIA's weekly petroleum data. It is a record of what physical oil actually traded for. The ICE futures price is quoted every trading day and is a market expectation for a specific future delivery month. Prices are quoted in US dollars per barrel.

Brent is one of two benchmarks that dominate global crude pricing. The other is WTI, priced at Cushing, Oklahoma, which our WTI crude oil price page covers in the same weekly discipline. Section 5 below puts the two side by side using this site's own weekly series, and our WTI vs Brent spread explainer goes into the full driver framework.

2. Recent weekly history

The table below shows the eight most recent weekly readings from the EIA series PetroEyes tracks - 592 weekly observations in total, running back to 1987. WTI is shown alongside so the spread between the two benchmarks is visible in the same table.

Over the past year the series traded as high as $124.61 per barrel in the week of April 10, 2026 and as low as $60.83 in the week of December 19, 2025. The same week a year ago printed $67.15, so the year-over-year comparison helps put the current level in context. That 52-week range, from roughly $60.83 to $124.61, captures a market that swung between genuine oversupply fear and real tightness within twelve months, which is exactly why the benchmark deserves its own page rather than a footnote on the WTI one.

3. Spot price vs. futures price

Three checks prevent a misread of the headline number. First, which price: the weekly EIA spot figure on this page is backward-looking and stable, an average of physical trades over a finished week. The ICE futures price moves every trading day and gaps on inventory surprises, OPEC+ headlines, and geopolitical news. They answer different questions - "what did physical oil trade for" versus "what does the market expect for next month's delivery."

Second, which contract: news quotes almost always mean the front month, the nearest ICE delivery contract. Later contracts trade at different prices, and the pattern of those differences - higher later prices (contango) or lower later prices (backwardation) - is itself information about how tight seaborne supply is. Our contango vs backwardation explainer walks through how to read that curve.

Third, which delivery logic: Brent is a waterborne benchmark, so it reflects barrels that can physically reach any refinery with a coastline. That is the structural reason it usually trades above inland-priced WTI and the reason it responds first to events in the Atlantic basin, the Middle East, and the major shipping chokepoints. Regional pricing context lives on the markets page, which carries the live benchmark quotes and spread series.

4. What moves Brent

Brent answers to world fundamentals first, because it is the price the world actually buys at. The four forces below account for most weekly moves.

OPEC+ supply decisions

OPEC+ production policy is the single largest lever on Brent. The group's members produce roughly two-fifths of the world's crude, and its quota decisions and compliance rates land directly on seaborne availability. A surprise output cut tightens the Atlantic basin and shows up in Brent first; a faster-than-expected unwind of cuts does the reverse. PetroEyes' OPEC+ explainer details how the group's mechanics actually work, and the export quota impact model puts numbers on quota changes.

Geopolitics and the risk premium

Brent carries a geopolitical risk premium that WTI often does not, because the benchmark prices barrels that sail past the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal, and the Bab el-Mandeb. When shipping lanes look threatened, Brent rises even with no change in physical supply, as buyers price in disruption risk and freight rates jump. When those risks fade, the premium drains out just as fast. That premium is one reason Brent's 52-week trading range is wider than most observers expect from a "stable" benchmark.

Refinery demand and product cracks

Crude is worth what refineries will pay to turn it into fuel. Strong refining margins pull physical crude bidding higher; weak margins let sellers pile up cargoes at a discount. The crack spread - the margin between crude and the gasoline and diesel refined from it - is the practical gauge, and PetroEyes' refinery crack spreads explainer shows how to read it. Maintenance seasons each spring and fall create predictable soft patches in crude buying that show up in the weekly series above.

Global demand growth and the dollar

Over longer horizons, demand growth in the US, China, India, and the Middle East sets Brent's trend, while recessions in major consuming regions do the most to break it. Because crude is priced in US dollars, a stronger dollar tends to pressure the dollar price of a barrel while a weaker dollar supports it, all else equal. None of these forces produces a mechanical price: they shift probabilities, and the weekly data above is how you check which story the physical market is actually telling.

5. Brent vs WTI

Brent usually trades above WTI. The gap, called the Brent-WTI spread, reflects quality differences (Brent is slightly heavier and higher in sulfur than the lightest US shale grades), location (Brent is waterborne and reaches world markets without pipeline constraints), and the local balance at Cushing, the inland hub where WTI is priced. In the latest week of EIA data the spread was $21.96 per barrel. Over the past 52 matched weeks it averaged $7.50, ranging from $-0.78 (week of July 3, 2026) to $23.51 (week of September 25, 2026). A widening spread usually signals either strength in seaborne crude or a glut building inland; a narrowing or negative spread flips that reading. The full framework, with the spread's own long-run history from this site's data, is in WTI vs Brent spread explained.

6. Reading the numbers: a worked example

Data pages are only useful if you can read them at a glance. Here is how to read the current snapshot, step by step, using the figures at the top of this page.

Step 1: level vs. trend. The latest weekly spot is $120.03 per barrel, and the four-week average is $118.27. When the latest week sits above the four-week average, the market has been firming; below it, softening. One week above the average is noise, three or four in a row is a trend. Compare the level to the 52-week range ($60.83 to $124.61): a price near the top of that range means the market is already pricing in tightness, so bullish surprises have less room to lift it further.

Step 2: the spread check. The latest Brent-minus-WTI spread is $21.96, against a 52-week average of $7.50. A spread running well above its average means seaborne crude is tight relative to inland US crude, or that a risk premium is priced into waterborne barrels. A spread collapsing toward zero or negative means the inland market is relatively tighter, or that the risk premium has drained out. The direction of the change usually matters more than the level: a $5 narrowing in a month tells a clearer story than a static $20 spread.

Step 3: futures vs. spot. The ICE futures quote is $105.43 against a spot of $120.03. A futures price below spot (backwardation) means the market is paying up for barrels now and discounting later barrels, the classic signature of physical tightness. A futures price above spot (contango) means the market expects supply to loosen or storage to absorb the surplus. This page's two numbers, read together every week, are a complete first pass at the crude market's physical condition.

7. Brent in the long run: what 592 weeks of EIA data show

The weekly series PetroEyes tracks runs back to 1987, 592 observations in all. A few landmarks from the actual data, computed from this site's series:

• All-time high: $141.07 per barrel, week of July 4, 2008, at the peak of the pre-financial-crisis commodity run.
• All-time low: $9.78 per barrel, week of December 25, 1998, in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis and an OPEC overproduction episode.
• Largest single weekly move: a $36.51 drop, from $100.91 to $64.40, between the weeks of September 26 and October 24, 2008, as the financial crisis crushed demand expectations.
• Widest Brent-WTI spread: $28.33 per barrel, week of September 23, 2011, when Cushing storage was overflowing and inland crude was stranded while seaborne markets stayed firm.
• Narrowest (most negative) spread: -$10.21 per barrel, week of September 26, 2008, when US Gulf Coast hurricanes knocked out refineries and WTI briefly commanded the premium.
• Brent below WTI: in 66 of the 363 matched weeks in this site's data, Brent traded at a discount to WTI. The "Brent always costs more" rule is the norm, not a law.

Two lessons survive every cycle in this data. First, the extremes are always about logistics or fear, not geology: the widest spreads and the biggest weekly moves cluster around storage gluts, hurricanes, and financial panics. Second, mean reversion is slow but reliable. No premium and no discount in the table above lasted forever, which is why the spread check in section 6 works best as a gauge of current conditions rather than a forecast.

8. How Brent reaches the gas pump

Readers often ask why the pump price seems disconnected from the Brent quote. The chain between them is long, and each link adds cost and its own timing.

Refining comes first. Brent is unrefined crude. A refinery buys it, cracks it into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and heating oil, and sells those products at a margin over crude. When refinery margins are wide, the pump price can stay high even as Brent falls, because the refinery is capturing the difference. When margins are squeezed, pump prices track crude more tightly. This is the single biggest reason the two series diverge week to week, and it is why the crack spread explainer in section 4 is worth reading alongside this page.

Then logistics and blending. Refined products travel by pipeline, ship, rail, and truck to regional terminals, where ethanol or other components are blended in. Each mode and each handoff adds cost, and regional bottlenecks (a pipeline outage, a refinery turnaround) can spike one city's prices while the national average barely moves. That is why PetroEyes tracks gas prices by city rather than pretending one number describes a continent.

Then taxes and the station. Fuel taxes differ enormously by jurisdiction and are the largest single wedge between crude and pump prices in high-tax regions. The retail station adds its own thin margin last. The full breakdown of these layers, with their typical shares, is in our gasoline price breakdown explainer.

The practical takeaway: Brent sets the direction of fuel costs over months, but the weekly pump price is set by refineries, logistics, and taxes. If Brent falls $10 and your local price does not move, the answer is almost always in one of the links above, not in the crude market. The weekly Brent series on this page tells you what the raw material cost; the city fuel prices tell you what the finished product costs where you are.

9. Frequently asked questions

What is today's Brent crude oil price?

The latest EIA weekly spot reading is $120.03 per barrel for the week ending October 2, 2026. ICE Brent futures, which trade daily, last quoted $105.43 per barrel in PetroEyes' market feed (updated October 11, 2026). This page updates with each PetroEyes data refresh.

Why is Brent usually more expensive than WTI?

Brent prices waterborne crude that can reach any coastal refinery in the world, while WTI is priced at Cushing, Oklahoma, an inland hub with pipeline and storage constraints. The world is willing to pay a premium for barrels with optionality. Over the past 52 weeks in this site's EIA series, the Brent-WTI spread averaged $7.50 per barrel.

Where does the data come from?

The weekly series is the EIA's Brent spot price from the Weekly Petroleum Status Report data files, scraped and archived by PetroEyes' data pipeline -592 weekly observations back to 1987. The futures quote comes from daily ICE market data. Both series are shown with as-of dates, and our methodology page documents the pipeline.

Is Brent the price I pay for gasoline?

No. Brent is the price of unrefined crude at the seaborne benchmark level. Pump prices add refining, transport, blending, distribution, retail margin, and taxes, and gasoline trades as its own product with its own seasonal swings. The two are related over time but move on different weekly drivers; compare retail prices on the gas prices by city page.

What is the Brent futures contract?

The ICE Brent crude futures contract, traded in London, is the most liquid crude futures contract outside the US. Its front-month price is the number most news headlines quote when they say "oil prices," and it underpins pricing formulas for physical cargoes across Europe, Africa, and Asia. The EIA spot price on this page is the physical weekly record; the futures quote is the market's daily expectation.

How often does this page update?

The spot series updates whenever PetroEyes refreshes its EIA data, which tracks the EIA's weekly release cycle. Futures quotes refresh daily. Every figure on the page carries its as-of date, so a stale reading is visible rather than dressed up as current.

10. Related reading

• WTI Crude Oil Price Today - the US benchmark page, same EIA weekly discipline.
• Natural Gas (Henry Hub) Price Today - the gas-side benchmark page, same EIA weekly discipline.
• WTI vs Brent Spread Explained - why the two crude benchmarks diverge, with long-run spread data.
• Contango vs Backwardation, Explained - how to read the futures curve behind the front-month quote.
• EIA Crude Oil Inventory and Weekly Petroleum Status Report - the weekly physical data behind the headlines.
• OPEC+ Explained - the supply lever that moves Brent more than any other force.