Saudi Aramco cut the price of every grade it sells to Asia on November 5, 2026, by $2 a barrel from November. Reuters reported the Arab Light differential at its lowest since May 2020. The cut was quoted against a benchmark most readers have never heard of: the Oman/Dubai average. That average is the price of the oil the world actually burns. Brent and WTI get the headlines, but the crude that flows from the Gulf to Asia, the largest single trade flow in oil, is priced off Dubai, Oman and, since 2021, Murban.
Three benchmarks share the job, and they work in three different ways. Dubai is an assessment, built each day by a price reporting agency out of bids, offers and partial cargoes. Oman is a futures contract, physically delivered at Mina al Fahal. Murban is the newest of the three, a futures contract launched in 2021 that turned Abu Dhabi’s flagship grade into a benchmark of its own. This guide explains each one, how Saudi Aramco and its neighbours turn them into official selling prices, and what the spread between Brent and Dubai tells a reader about where the world’s oil is going.
Three benchmarks, three different machines
Table 1 puts the three side by side. The first thing it shows is that “the Dubai price” is not one thing. It is an assessment of a physical market, a futures settlement, and a newer futures settlement, blended into a single average that prices term contracts.
Table 1. The three Gulf benchmarks at a glance
| Benchmark | Grade and quality | How the price is set | Delivery and settlement | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dubai | Fateh (Dubai), about 31° API, about 2% sulfur, medium sour | Daily assessment by S&P Global Commodity Insights in the Singapore Market-on-Close window, built from 25,000-barrel partials | Partials converge into 500,000-barrel cargoes; Oman, Upper Zakum, Al Shaheen and Murban are deliverable | Base for Saudi Aramco, Kuwait, Iraq and other Gulf producers’ Asian official selling prices |
| Oman | Oman Export Blend, about 34° API, about 0.8% sulfur, medium sour | DME Oman Crude Oil Futures, daily settlement on the Dubai Mercantile Exchange | Physical delivery at Mina al Fahal, Oman; 1,000-barrel contracts, 200,000-barrel minimum delivery | Oman’s official selling price; half of the Oman/Dubai average |
| Murban | Murban, 39.9° API, 0.78% sulfur, light sour | ICE Murban Crude Oil Futures, daily settlement on ICE Futures Abu Dhabi | Physical delivery at Fujairah, UAE, free on board; 1,000-barrel contracts | ADNOC’s official selling price for Murban; Upper Zakum, Das and Umm Lulu priced off it |
Quality figures are typical assays and vary by cargo and lifting date. Murban quality is from ICE (39.9° API, 0.78% sulfur). Dubai and Oman figures are from published grade summaries. Contract terms are from the Dubai Mercantile Exchange and ICE Futures Abu Dhabi launch material, checked November 9, 2026.
The blend matters. The Oman/Dubai average pairs an agency judgement with an exchange settlement, so neither side alone decides what a term buyer pays. Murban sits outside the average: it prices Abu Dhabi’s own grades and gives buyers of light crude a Gulf reference that is neither Dubai nor Oman.
Dubai: the assessment that prices the Gulf
Dubai is the oldest of the three, and the strangest. The grade behind it, Fateh crude from the Emirate of Dubai, is produced in small volumes. Energy Intelligence called Dubai a tiny but influential producer when the DME contract launched, and the description still fits: the benchmark’s weight has almost nothing to do with how much Dubai crude exists.
There is no Dubai futures contract of consequence. The benchmark is a Platts assessment, now published by S&P Global Commodity Insights, built in the Singapore Market-on-Close window. Traders deal in partials, slices of 25,000 barrels. Once a buyer accumulates twenty partials from one seller, the position converges into a full 500,000-barrel physical cargo. Because the original Dubai stream is small, Platts allows sellers to deliver alternative grades into the assessment: Oman, Upper Zakum, Al Shaheen, and Murban with a quality adjustment. That keeps the assessment anchored to real, deliverable Gulf supply instead of a stream that could run dry.
The official selling price link is what turns an assessment into a benchmark. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran have historically set their Asian term prices as differentials to Dubai-linked averages, so tens of millions of barrels a day of term crude reference a grade that Dubai itself barely produces. The mechanism is the point: an assessment can price a flow far larger than its own physical base, as long as the deliverable grades behind it are real and the buyers accept the result.
Quality is the other half of the story. Dubai is medium and sour, about 31 degrees API and about 2 percent sulfur. That is the crude Asia’s refineries were built to run. Brent and WTI are light and sweet, and pricing Gulf barrels off them would misprice the refining value. A benchmark works when it matches the barrels being traded, and Dubai matches the Gulf-to-Asia flow better than any Atlantic grade. The API gravity and sulfur guide explains the two numbers behind that match.
Oman and the DME: the first Gulf futures contract
Oman fixed the part of the system that Dubai could not. On June 1, 2007, after several missed start dates, the Dubai Mercantile Exchange launched the Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract, the first physically settled futures contract in the region. The exchange was a joint venture of the Dubai government, the New York Mercantile Exchange and the government of Oman, which took a 30 percent stake.
The contract trades in 1,000-barrel parcels and settles by physical delivery at Mina al Fahal, Oman’s export terminal, with a minimum delivery size of 200,000 barrels. The DME and Petroleum Development Oman, the sultanate’s main producer, handle delivery matching. Two cash-settled spread contracts, Brent-Oman and WTI-Oman, launched the same day.
The launch changed how Oman itself was priced. Oman dropped its retroactive Ministry of Oil and Gas pricing system, which had set the official price after the month ended, and based its export price on the daily settlement of the DME contract instead. The Dubai government said it would price its own oil exports against the DME Oman contract too. A benchmark that had been an agency assessment gained an exchange settlement with physical barrels behind it.
The scale at launch shows why the contract mattered beyond Oman. The sultanate produced just over 700,000 barrels a day at the time, and its crude made up half the benchmark used to price about 12 million barrels a day exported from the Middle East to Asia, according to Energy Intelligence. Oman is also the lighter, sweeter half of the pair, about 34 degrees API and about 0.8 percent sulfur against Dubai at about 31 degrees and about 2 percent. The Oman/Dubai average blends the two halves: one assessed, one exchange-traded, one heavier and sourer, one lighter and sweeter.
Murban and IFAD: the light sour challenger
Murban arrived fourteen years later, and it filled the gap the first two left open: light crude. On March 29, 2021, ICE Futures Abu Dhabi began trading the ICE Murban Crude Oil Futures contract, physically delivered at Fujairah in the UAE on a free-on-board basis. The first contract to expire was the June 2021 month. By midnight GMT on launch day, 2,132 lots of 1,000 barrels each had traded, about 2.1 million barrels.
Murban is a light sour crude, 39.9 degrees API and 0.78 percent sulfur. It is lighter than Brent, WTI and DME Oman, but it carries more sulfur than Brent and WTI, which is part of why it has traded below Brent. ADNOC’s onshore concessions have the capacity to produce about 2 million barrels a day of Murban-quality crude, and ADNOC committed to supply half of its Murban crude to Fujairah for export, so the delivery point would have barrels behind it.
The pricing switch came with the launch. ADNOC had moved to forward pricing in March 2020 and priced Murban off the Platts Dubai assessment while the exchange was built. From the first month of lifting for the new contract, Murban’s official monthly price became the average of the daily settlements of the front-month IFAD contract. ADNOC also prices its other grades, Upper Zakum, Das and Umm Lulu, at differentials to Murban, announced early in the month before the loading month. Nine of the world’s largest energy traders and buyers, BP, GS Caltex, INPEX, ENEOS, PetroChina, PTT, Shell, Total and Vitol, partnered with ICE on the launch.
Early trading gave the contract a clear position in the quality ladder. The EIA reported in August 2021 that the front-month Murban contract had traded at a lower price than Brent on average since launch, but at a higher price than both WTI and DME Oman. That is the light sour slot: above the medium sour pair, below the light sweet Atlantic benchmark. Argus reported that three companies had signed initial agreements to explore using the IFAD Murban contract as a benchmark for US crude exports to Asia, since Murban is closer in quality to WTI than medium sour Dubai crude is. The WTI vs Brent guide covers the Atlantic benchmarks Murban is measured against.
How an official selling price is built
An official selling price is a formula, not a number. For Asia it is the Oman/Dubai average plus a differential. The average is the market: the mean of the Platts Dubai assessment and the DME Oman settlement over the pricing month. The differential is the commercial decision, set by the producer each month and announced in the first days of the month before the loading month. The buyer pays the average plus the differential, so the producer competes on the differential while the benchmark does the rest.
Table 2. Saudi Aramco official selling price differentials to Asia, dollars per barrel to the Oman/Dubai average
| Grade | December 2026 | November 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Super Light | -$5.35 | -$3.35 | -$2.00 |
| Extra Light | -$6.50 | -$4.50 | -$2.00 |
| Light (Arab Light) | -$7.00 | -$5.00 | -$2.00 |
| Medium | -$8.00 | -$6.00 | -$2.00 |
| Heavy | -$9.35 | -$7.35 | -$2.00 |
Source: Saudi Aramco pricing document as reported by Reuters, November 5, 2026. Differentials apply to the monthly average of the Platts Dubai assessment and the DME Oman settlement for the loading month.
December 2026 shows the formula working under pressure. Aramco cut every grade by $2 a barrel from November, with Arab Light at its deepest discount since May 2020, the pandemic month. Reuters reported the cuts came against ample Middle East supplies, weaker spot premiums for Middle East crude, and cooling refining margins in Asia that had slowed buying. The differential is where a producer signals: hold the price and lose volume, or cut the price and keep the barrels moving. The December cut chose volume.
The arithmetic is simple once the differential is known. Take a hypothetical Oman/Dubai average of $70 a barrel for December loading. The average is hypothetical; the differentials are the published ones. Arab Light at minus $7.00 prices at $63.00 a barrel. Arab Heavy at minus $9.35 prices at $60.65. Super Light at minus $5.35 prices at $64.65. The $4 spread between the lightest and heaviest grade is the quality ladder in dollars: lighter, sweeter barrels earn more because they yield more high-value products per barrel.
The regions get different formulas. Crude bound for the United States is priced against ASCI, the Argus Sour Crude Index. Crude bound for Northwest Europe and the Mediterranean is priced against ICE Brent. Asia gets the Oman/Dubai average because Asia buys the Gulf’s medium sour barrels. Kuwait, Iraq and Iran have historically priced their Asian term crude the same way, as differentials to Dubai-linked averages, and Abu Dhabi now prices its grades off Murban. The benchmark follows the buyer.
The December 2026 signal, in one line
A $2 cut across all five grades, with the deepest Arab Light discount since May 2020, is a producer choosing volume over price while Middle East supply runs ample and Asian refining margins cool. The differential, not the benchmark, carries that message.
The Brent-Dubai EFS: the spread that moves barrels
The Brent-Dubai exchange of futures for swaps, the EFS, is the spread between ICE Brent futures and Dubai swaps. It quotes the price of light sweet Atlantic crude against medium sour Gulf crude, and it is the number traders watch when deciding which ocean supplies an Asian refinery.
The logic is arbitrage. An Asian buyer compares a Brent-linked barrel delivered from the Atlantic with a Dubai-linked barrel delivered from the Gulf. Freight, quality and refining value all enter the comparison, and the EFS compresses the crude-price part of it into one number. When the EFS is wide, Brent is dear relative to Dubai, Atlantic barrels struggle to compete in Asia, and Gulf crude is favoured there. When it narrows, Atlantic crude can flow east on price, and Gulf producers feel the competition in their own market. When it goes negative, the Atlantic barrel is cheaper than the Gulf barrel before freight, and the flow reverses.
Table 3. Reading the Brent-Dubai EFS
| EFS reading | What it usually means | Who feels it |
|---|---|---|
| Wide and positive | Brent is expensive against Dubai; Atlantic crude is priced out of Asia | Gulf producers hold Asian share; Atlantic sellers look west |
| Narrow | The two barrels are close on price; freight and quality decide | Asian refiners shop between oceans; small freight moves swing the trade |
| Negative | Brent is cheaper than Dubai before freight | Gulf producers face Atlantic competition in Asia; OSP differentials come under pressure |
This table is a reading guide, not data. The EFS moves daily; the direction of the signal is what matters, not any single print.
The EFS is also why the Gulf benchmarks matter to readers who never buy a barrel. A wide EFS means the world’s two crude markets have split: Atlantic prices high, Gulf prices lower, and the gap is a freight and quality story rather than a single global oil price. A narrow EFS means the markets have joined up and barrels can move either way. The OPEC+ guide explains the production decisions that push the Gulf side of the spread around, and the Strait of Hormuz guide covers the chokepoint most of those barrels sail through.
The scale behind the benchmark
A benchmark’s weight comes from the flow it prices, not from the grade behind it. Table 4 uses this site’s checked-in country data, 2024 estimates from EIA, IEA, OPEC and the World Bank, to size the flow. The seven Gulf producers in the table exported 19.3 million barrels a day in 2024, against production of 29.07 million.
Table 4. Gulf crude producers, 2024, million barrels a day
| Country | Production | Exports | Share of Gulf exports |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saudi Arabia | 10.69 | 6.8 | 35.2% |
| Iran | 4.68 | 1.8 | 9.3% |
| Iraq | 4.52 | 3.6 | 18.7% |
| United Arab Emirates | 4.15 | 3.2 | 16.6% |
| Kuwait | 2.70 | 2.1 | 10.9% |
| Qatar | 1.35 | 1.0 | 5.2% |
| Oman | 0.98 | 0.8 | 4.1% |
| Total, seven Gulf producers | 29.07 | 19.3 | 100% |
Source: PetroEyes country snapshot archive, 2024 estimates (EIA, IEA, OPEC, World Bank), checked November 9, 2026. Shares and totals are this page’s arithmetic. Bahrain produced 0.04 million barrels a day and exported none in the same archive, so it is not listed.
Three numbers put the flow in context. The seven producers’ 29.07 million barrels a day of production was 29% of world production of 101.3 million barrels a day. Their 19.3 million barrels a day of exports was about 18% of world oil demand of 105.74 million barrels a day in 2026, on the OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report figures in this site’s checked-in forecast file. And Saudi Arabia alone shipped 35% of the Gulf total. The largest crude trade in the world is priced off a benchmark whose namesake grade Dubai barely produces, because the flow behind it is close to a fifth of everything the world burns.
Most of that flow sails east. The same country file lists China, India, Japan and South Korea among the world’s five largest crude importers, and the Gulf-to-Asia route is the one the Dubai, Oman and Murban benchmarks were built to price. That is also why the benchmarks move on Asian refining margins and Asian demand, not on the Atlantic market. When Asian margins cool, as Reuters reported in November 2026, the OSP differentials fall first; the benchmark average follows the physical market.
Which benchmark should you watch?
Three benchmarks exist because three different readers need three different prices. Table 5 sorts them by the question being asked.
Table 5. Which Gulf benchmark answers which question
| If you are | Watch | Why |
|---|---|---|
| An Asian refiner buying term crude | The Oman/Dubai average and your supplier’s OSP differential | The average is the base of the invoice; the differential is the negotiation |
| A trader moving Atlantic crude east | The Brent-Dubai EFS | It prices the switch between Brent-linked and Dubai-linked barrels |
| A US producer selling into Asia | Murban and the Brent-Dubai spread | Murban is the light Gulf grade Asian buyers compare WTI against |
| An investor tracking Gulf producer revenue | OSP differentials month to month | A $2 cut across grades is a revenue signal before volumes move |
| An OPEC+ watcher | The Oman/Dubai average and the OSPs | They show whether producers are competing on price or holding the line |
| A fuel-price watcher outside Asia | Brent and WTI first | Dubai, Oman and Murban reach your pump price only through the crude pool, not directly |
This table is a reading guide. It does not rank the benchmarks by importance; each one answers a different question.
Start with the Oman/Dubai average for anything about Gulf term crude. Add the EFS when the question is about flows between oceans, and Murban when the question is about light grades. The three together cover the trade; any one alone misses a third of it.
What this page leaves out
The Platts Dubai assessment is subscription data, so this page describes the mechanism rather than quoting the daily price. The DME Oman and IFAD Murban settlements are published by their exchanges. Nothing here forecasts any price, and nothing here is a recommendation about any contract. Quality figures are typical assays: a cargo’s actual API gravity and sulfur content vary, and the contract specifications, not the averages on this page, govern a delivery.
Dubai, Oman and Murban questions
What is the Dubai crude benchmark?
Dubai is a medium sour crude, about 31 degrees API and about 2 percent sulfur, produced in the Emirate of Dubai. The benchmark is not a futures contract. It is a daily assessment published by S&P Global Commodity Insights, built in the Singapore Market-on-Close window from bids, offers and trades in 25,000-barrel partial cargoes. Twenty partials from one seller converge into a 500,000-barrel physical cargo, and sellers may deliver Oman, Upper Zakum, Al Shaheen or Murban instead of Dubai itself.
How is Oman crude different from Dubai crude?
Oman is the lighter and sweeter half of the pair, about 34 degrees API and about 0.8 percent sulfur against Dubai at about 31 degrees and about 2 percent. The bigger difference is how the price is set. Dubai is an agency assessment; Oman has a futures contract, the DME Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract, physically delivered at Mina al Fahal in Oman since June 1, 2007. Saudi Aramco prices its Asian term crude against the average of the two.
What is Murban crude, and why did it get its own futures contract?
Murban is Abu Dhabi’s flagship grade, a light sour crude at 39.9 degrees API and 0.78 percent sulfur, produced from ADNOC’s onshore fields. The ICE Murban Crude Oil Futures contract began trading on ICE Futures Abu Dhabi on March 29, 2021, physically delivered at Fujairah in the UAE. ADNOC switched Murban’s official monthly price to the futures settlement and prices its other grades, Upper Zakum, Das and Umm Lulu, at differentials to Murban. It gave Asia a light benchmark to sit beside the medium sour Dubai and Oman pair.
How does Saudi Aramco set its official selling price for Asia?
Aramco announces a differential for each grade, in dollars per barrel, against the Oman/Dubai average, in the first days of the month before the loading month. The buyer pays the monthly average of the Platts Dubai assessment and the DME Oman settlement, plus the differential. In December 2026 every grade was cut by $2 a barrel from November: Super Light at minus $5.35, Extra Light at minus $6.50, Light at minus $7.00, Medium at minus $8.00 and Heavy at minus $9.35 to the average. Reuters reported the Arab Light differential at its lowest since May 2020.
What is the Brent-Dubai EFS?
The exchange of futures for swaps is the spread between ICE Brent futures and Dubai swaps: the price of light sweet Atlantic crude against medium sour Gulf crude. A wide EFS means Brent is dear relative to Dubai, so Atlantic barrels struggle to compete in Asia and Gulf crude is favoured there. A narrow or negative EFS means Atlantic crude can flow east on price. It is the gauge traders watch when deciding which ocean’s oil supplies an Asian refinery.
Why does the Middle East not just price off Brent?
Because Brent is the wrong crude for the trade. Brent is light and sweet; the Gulf grades are medium and sour, and Asian refineries were built to run them. A benchmark should track the barrels actually traded in a region, and the Gulf-to-Asia flow is the largest crude trade in the world. Pricing it off Brent would tie Gulf sellers to a North Sea grade their buyers do not refine.
Where can I see Dubai, Oman and Murban prices?
The futures settlements are public: the Dubai Mercantile Exchange publishes the DME Oman settlement, and ICE Futures Abu Dhabi publishes the Murban settlement. The Platts Dubai assessment itself is subscription data from S&P Global Commodity Insights. Official selling prices are announced monthly and reported by the press; this site’s deep-dive on OPEC+ explains the production decisions that sit behind them.
Data and sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration, New UAE-based crude oil futures contract introduced in March (Today in Energy, August 26, 2021; Murban quality, launch trading, price position against Brent, WTI and DME Oman). ICE and ADNOC via Energy Connects (February 25, 2021; March 29, 2021 launch, Fujairah delivery, forward pricing, Upper Zakum, Das and Umm Lulu) and Markets Media (January 14, 2021; approvals, partners, contract structure). Dubai Mercantile Exchange via Energy Intelligence and Risk.net (February 22, 2007; June 1, 2007 launch, 1,000-barrel contracts, Mina al Fahal delivery, Oman pricing switch) and the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Middle East Crude Pricing and the Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract (August 2006; contract design, Oman quality against Dubai). Saudi Aramco December 2026 official selling prices via Reuters as reported by BOE Report (November 5, 2026; differentials, $2 cut, lowest Arab Light discount since May 2020, ASCI and ICE Brent formulas for other regions). Platts partials mechanism and deliverable grades via Commodities 101: Dubai Crude, checked November 9, 2026. Country production and export figures from the PetroEyes country snapshot archive (2024 estimates, EIA, IEA, OPEC, World Bank); world demand from the PetroEyes OPEC archive (OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report, August 2026). Shares, totals, the hypothetical $70 example and the reading-guide tables are this page’s arithmetic.