West Texas Intermediate

West Texas Intermediate ( WTI ) also known as Texas light sweet is a brand of oil produced in Texas ( USA ), the density in degrees of API is 39.6 °, the density is 827 kg / m³, the sulfur content is 0.4-0, five %. It is mainly used for the production of gasoline , therefore, this and similar grades of oil are in high demand, in particular in the USA and China .

Oil prices are largely determined by the value of the West Texas Intermediate brand, traded on the NYMEX exchange since 1983 . Typically, WTI futures are set for delivery to hubs in Cushing , Oklahoma , USA ^{[1] [2]} .

Prices for Brent mix and West Texas Intermediate marker oil (USA) from 2006 to 2013, the price difference between them is also shown ( EIA data).

WTI and another major brand, Brent , represent almost the same product in terms of composition. For a long time, the difference between their prices was small. Typically, Brent was trading at US $ 1–4 per barrel lower than WTI due to higher shipping costs to the US. However, since 2011, parity has changed and Brent began to bargain with a premium of $ 10-20 per barrel to WTI prices. ^[3] The difference in price between them can be explained in various ways, including: direct connection of WTI futures with physical deliveries (they reach 3-4% of contracts), in contrast to more convenient for trading and speculating non-deliverable Brent futures; congestion in the infrastructure of Cushing (overstocking of oil storage facilities); greater economic growth of countries whose imports are set by Brent prices ^[4] .

Export prices for 2/3 of the world's oil varieties directly or indirectly depend on the prices of WTI and Brent, despite the fact that the production of the WTI variety itself is less than 1% of the total world oil production ^[2] .