Brent Crude Oil Price Today: Benchmark, History and Supply

FT quote (2026-11-02, 09:18 GMT): 108.58 USD · Trading Economics (2026-11-02): Trading Economics (financial data publisher) 104.11 USD/bbl · EIA spot (2026-10-27, via FRED): Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED data service) 123.10 USD/bbl · Dec26 last trading day: 2026-10-30

Eleven figures, one pattern: most values are pinned to a single day, and the newest ones cluster on 2026-11-02.

What is the price of Brent crude oil per barrel today?

The honest answer depends on the timestamp. The newest figures in the evidence are dated 2026-11-02, and the Financial Times page shows 108.58 USD at 09:18 GMT, down 4.85 (-4.28%) on the day. Trading Economics, a financial data publisher, puts Brent at 104.11 USD/bbl on the same date, down 8.22% from the prior session.

What is the current price of Brent crude oil according to MarketWatch?

• The evidence set contains no MarketWatch quote, so this article gives no MarketWatch figure.
• Readers who need that number should open the page directly and compare its timestamp with the ones above.

The contract matters as much as the timestamp. ICE (exchange operator) lists the Dec26 contract’s last trading day as 2026-10-30, so the late-October front month had already expired by early November. Its successor, the Jan27 contract, has a last trading day of 2026-11-30.

Spot prices tell a different story. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis mirrors the EIA daily series, which shows 123.10 USD/bbl on 2026-10-27 and 128.12 USD/bbl on 2026-10-26.

The implication: a single live price is a snapshot with a date on it. Treat the number as valid only when the page shows when it was taken and which instrument it describes.

The pattern: each quote answers one question about one date, so readers should pick the figure that matches their question before they pick the number.

What’s the difference between Brent crude oil and regular crude oil?

Brent is crude from the North Sea, and today it works mainly as a price reference. Trading Economics describes it as the pricing reference for crude produced in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The evidence does not define “regular” crude, so the comparison below rests on what Brent measures, not on a generic grade.

What is Brent crude oil used for?

• Pricing reference: Trading Economics says Brent is used to price crude from Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
• Futures settlement: ICE Brent futures are physically deliverable, with an option to cash settle against the ICE Brent Index (ICE).
• Index basis: the ICE Brent Index averages trading in the prevailing North Sea physical market and uses only full cargo trades, currently 700,000 barrels (ICE).

Which country has the highest quality of crude oil?

• Quality rankings depend on sulfur content and API gravity, not on a single country’s label.
• The evidence contains no sulfur or API gravity figures for Brent or any rival grade, so no country can be ranked on quality here.

The evidence supports a claim about Brent’s pricing role, not about its quality relative to other grades. Readers comparing grades should look for dated assay data from a named source before accepting any ranking.

The trade-off: a benchmark tells you how a barrel is priced, while a grade tells you what is in it. Mixing the two produces answers that sound precise but measure different things.

How much was a barrel of oil in 1970?

The evidence does not contain a sourced 1970 price, so this piece does not invent one. The EIA Europe Brent spot record begins on 1987-05-20 at 18.63 USD/bbl (U.S. Energy Information Administration), and its monthly series starts in 1987-05 at 18.58 USD/bbl (U.S. Energy Information Administration).

Which fuel is black gold?

• The evidence does not address the “black gold” nickname.
• Brent is a crude oil benchmark, so every figure in this section is a crude price in USD per barrel.

According to Trading Economics, its Brent series runs from 1970 to 2026, but EIA does not corroborate that start date in this evidence. The same source gives an all-time high of 147.50 USD/bbl in 2008-07, while the EIA monthly excerpt bottoms at 18.38 USD/bbl in 2020-04.

No source in this evidence set documents the price effect of the 1973 Arab oil embargo, so this piece does not quantify it.

The implication: the 1970 question needs a dated series that this evidence does not supply. Every figure here is nominal, not inflation-adjusted, and that is the only basis a reader can check today.

Where does the USA get most of its oil from?

The evidence contains no U.S. import-origin data, so this section cannot name the countries that supply the most crude to the United States. Import flows change from year to year, and any answer needs a named agency and a year attached, which the retrieved sources do not provide.

Who has the richest oil in the world?

• “Richest” is not a defined measure in the sources, and this evidence set includes no reserve ranking.
• Proven reserves, production and imports are three different measures, and any reserve ranking must name its source and year.

Who has the most untouched oil?

• The phrase “untouched oil” does not match a measure that the retrieved sources report.
• The ICE Brent Index reflects the average price of trading in the North Sea physical market for the relevant delivery month, not the size of any country’s reserves (ICE).

The catch: an import answer needs a dated import series, and this evidence set has none. Until that series is in hand, the honest answer is that the sources do not establish one.

Which countries consume the most oil?

No consumption ranking appears in the retrieved evidence, so this section does not rank countries. Consumption and production are separate figures, and a ranking built on one cannot stand in for the other.

• A consumption ranking must cite a named agency and a year.
• Demand links to Brent price moves only when the source for the demand figure is stated.

Why this matters: without a dated volume series, any claim that demand drives Brent moves is a hypothesis, not a finding.

Four quotes, four dates

Four sources, four dates: each figure answers a different question, and the spreads come from those differences rather than from one source being wrong.

The implication: the 2027 contract trades far below the spot print, and the futures curve explains much of that gap. A reader who compares the two without the contract month gets the wrong story.

Timeline signal

• 1987-05-20: first daily observation in the EIA Europe Brent spot series, at 18.63 USD/bbl (U.S. Energy Information Administration).
• 2008-07: all-time high of 147.50 USD/bbl, according to Trading Economics.
• 2020-04: lowest monthly EIA value in the excerpt, at 18.38 USD/bbl (U.S. Energy Information Administration).
• 2026-10-26 and 2026-10-27: EIA spot values of 128.12 and 123.10 USD/bbl (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis).
• 2026-10-30: last trading day for the Dec26 ICE Brent contract (ICE).
• 2026-11-02: Financial Times quote of 108.58 USD and Trading Economics quote of 104.11 USD/bbl.
• 2026-11-30: last trading day for the Jan27 ICE Brent contract (ICE).

The implication: the front month rolls on a fixed calendar, so a quote read on a later date may describe a different contract than the one an earlier article discussed.

Confirmed facts and what’s unclear

Confirmed facts

• EIA publishes a daily Europe Brent Spot Price FOB series in USD/bbl (U.S. Energy Information Administration).
• ICE Brent futures lots are 1,000 barrels, priced in US dollars and cents with a one-cent tick (ICE).
• The Dec26 ICE Brent contract’s last trading day is 2026-10-30 (ICE).

What’s unclear

• The 1970 price: the evidence contains no sourced figure.
• The 147.50 USD/bbl high rests on Trading Economics alone, and no official source in the evidence confirms it.
• Perplexity Finance reportedly put Brent at 110.14 on 2026-10-29 after a rally of more than 11%, and flagged a quote discrepancy near expiry.
• A delayed front-month quote of 104.96 USD per barrel appears in the research plan with no timestamp or retrievable link, so this article does not use it.
• The Trading Economics series dating back to 1970 is not corroborated by EIA.

The catch: the three confirmed facts are solid, but the two figures readers search for most, the 1970 price and a verified latest quote, sit on the unclear side of the ledger.

What the sources say

Brent is the price barometer for ~80% of global crude.

ICE (exchange operator)

These prices do not represent official Brent crude benchmarks.

Trading Economics (financial data publisher), on its CFD-based Brent prices

Weekly, monthly, and annual prices are calculated by EIA from daily data by taking an unweighted average of the daily closing spot prices for a given product over the specified time period.

U.S. Energy Information Administration (federal energy statistics)

The pattern: the three publishers describe their own numbers with care, and each one labels its scope. A reader who copies a figure without that label becomes the weak link.

What to watch next

The next checkpoints are contract dates, not forecasts: the Jan27 contract’s last trading day is 2026-11-30 and the Feb27 contract’s is 2026-12-30 (ICE). For investors tracking the front month, a quote read without its contract month and timestamp can show the price of a different contract than the one they meant to follow.

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