WTI Vs Brent -- February 26, 2015

At one time I used to track and post WTI and Brent, to compare the spread between the two, but for some reason, I lost interest. I even had / have a WTI-Brent spread tag.

Today/tonight, from the Bloomberg site (dynamic site):

• WTI: $48.90
• Brent: $60.05

I haven't been following the spread, and I have no background in this, so I may be wrong, but here are some thoughts, some of which may be incorrect:

• WTI priced at Cushing
• Brent is "North Sea" oil
• years ago, WTI was the global benchmark
• more recently Brent became the benchmark
• everything I'm reading suggests challenges for those drilling in the North Sea
• it is being widely reported (and I've posted the links at this blog) that Cushing will reach full capacity by May, 2015, and perhaps as early as April, 2014
• no matter how fast the rigs are stacked, there's a lot of oil flowing into Cushing that is hard to stop
• it looks like Brent and Cushing are diverging (well, duh --  yes, but that was not being talked about back in 2013)
• the American cartel pits Brent against OPEC
• OPEC can probably move its price in the direction Brent is headed
• WTI becoming more and more "unrelated" to Brent, OPEC

Maybe it's time to track the WTI-Brent spread again. At one time we were watching to see how narrow the spread would get; whether they would reach parity; and/or, if WTI would become the new benchmark.

It looks like the new metric -- how large will the delta become as a) oil from the North Sea declines; and, b) Cushing reaches capacity.

Maybe oil companies will reward customers for coming into their service stations to buy gasoline, perhaps even paying customers to fill their tanks.