The CME/NYMEX domestic sweet (DSW) crude oil futures prompt-month contract at Cushing, OK, is the most closely followed benchmark in U.S. energy markets. It’s the price quoted in nightly news reports and general media publications. And now, with U.S. exports of WTI deliverable on the Brent contract, domestic sweet at Cushing is arguably setting the price for crudes around the world. But the fact is, most crudes traded in physical markets across North America are not priced at the DSW-at-Cushing benchmark but instead at a differential to Cushing — higher or lower on any given day based on each crude’s unique quality, location, and supply/demand characteristics.
There are many crudes traded across North America, each with its own density (measured in API degrees), sulfur content (measured in percentages), total acid number (TAN), and other qualities. The value of all these crudes, with names like Midland Sweet (MIDSWT), Magellan East Houston (MEH), Mars, Bakken, West Texas Light (WTL), and Western Canadian Select (WCS) are typically quoted as differentials to the price of DSW deliverable on the NYMEX Cushing contract. The behavior of differentials from the Cushing benchmark can go a long way to explain what is happening with crude oil production, transportation volumes, storage and, of course, exports..
TradeView: Crude Oil Price Analytics & Differentials is a report offered through the joint efforts of RBN and Link Data Services (LDS – a leading Gulf Coast physical crude brokerage firm) to help you better understand what’s going on each week with crude oil differentials. The report provides up-to-date data and insights into the behavior of differentials for 33 crude assessments across North America. We also include the weekly average for the previous five weeks, the monthly average for the past six months, and the annual average for as many years as we have historical data.
Each week, TradeView also walks you through the reasoning of why differentials widen, narrow, flip (premium vs. discount), or blow out. You will gain valuable insights from the folks doing the trades as to the key factors shaping North American crude oil markets. Get TradeView today and take your understanding of the market to the next level!
What’s Available
-
TradeView Weekly PDF Report – Released each Sunday afternoon, this weekly PDF report explains recent movements in North American crude oil price differentials. We comment on what’s driving these markets – supply and demand dynamics, quality differentials, physical constraints and other nuanced market behaviors. This report is critical for those who need to know what the most important changes in crude markets were last week and what caused them. -
TradeView DAILY Differentials Data File* - Excel spreadsheet lists the settled price differentials, previous days differential, the change from day-to-day, and the month-to-date average of over 50 different crude oil differentials. These are organized by Domestic [U.S] Pipeline Assessments, Canadian Pipeline Assessments, Physical Spreads, Cushing and Pipeline Value Assessments, WTI US Gulf Coast Assessments, and Rockies and Mid-Continent Assessments. This is a useful reference when reviewing the previous days price changes across the continent. This data file is created by LDS and distributed by RBN. -
TradeView WEEKLY Differentials Data File* – Excel spreadsheet that is updated and released with the weekly PDF which shows the previous week’s daily prices from the Daily Differentials Data File (described above). This is useful when you need understand how prices moved overall last week, and when you need to bake the numbers into your weekly models.
-
TradeView Price Differential HISTORICAL Data File** – A one-time historical data dump of all the prices we track in the Weekly Differential Data File, going back daily to 2018 where available. This is an additional one-time cost and deliverable. Contact RBN directly for pricing.
* Available With Annual Subscription
** Requires Annual Report + Data Subscriptions
The Historical Data is a Separate One-Time Purchase
Learn more about TradeView by watching the webcast that aired in August 2023
The "Let’s Get Physical" webcast was all about U.S. physical crude oil trading markets. The webcast was scheduled for Tuesday, August 29, at 2:30 p.m. Central Time; and our panelists were Scott Nelson, Commercial Director at Link Data Services, Rusty Braziel, RBN’s Executive Chairman with Marty King, Senior Analyst and Consultant at RBN moderating. We discussed what’s going on with shifting crude quality specs, flows and price differentials, and checked out how to make sense out of the U.S. crude oil market using Crude Oil TradeView, the crude oil price analytics & differentials report from RBN and Link Data Services.
Already a subscriber? Make sure you are logged in and reload this page.
Complete the form below to request a Sample Report and additional information on Crude Oil TradeView, Group Access, and Historical Data Access:
