Crude Quality Matters

There is no such thing as “oil”. Refineries are engineered for specific crude qualities and optimised around the grades they can reliably source. In today’s geopolitical environment, where flows are weaponised and access can shift overnight, understanding crude quality matters more than ever. Physical strength and weakness appear first in the relative pricing between grades, long before they reach headline benchmarks. Differentials are signals. The interactive chart below maps 152 key barrels.