But US oil prices are subdued, having lost their long-time link with the Brent crude benchmark.
Oil prices dropped in Asia, with US light crude down by 1.9%, and Brent crude sliding 1.6%.
West Texas Intermediate crude and ICE Brent crude are both priced in dollars.
Meanwhile recent maintenance shutdowns in the North Sea have worsened already declining supplies from ageing fields of Brent crude.
The diversion of oil from the Midwest will narrow the gap between the West Texas Intermediate Oil and the Brent Crude.
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And I do understand that Brent crude was down more, but again, this is hardly the stuff from which celebrations are born.
The major part of oil shipments by international producers is denominated in Brent crude, so talk of a commodity supercycle lacks credibility.
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Concerns over the surging cost of Brent crude are growing as analysts warn that Europe could be at the center of an oil-price shock.
But now, the rioting has spread to Libya and Iran, and the prices of Brent Crude, and West Texas Intermediate Oil have jumped upward.
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Brent crude prices have fallen on hopes that oil production in Libya will return soon, even though those assumptions may prove to be overly optimistic.
Charts on Brent crude and WTI futures show clearly defined backwardation.
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While these antics may focus the cameras on themselves, the price of Brent crude oil is rising everyday, and the cheapest option lies in Canada.
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Now that the glut of oil parked in the Midwest will move to the Coast, sentiment improved and WTI pricing moved more in line with Brent crude.
Brent crude, the oil benchmark, has gained nearly 12% since the end of June, while natural gas has dropped 1.3% and coal has dropped more than 10%.
The price spread between Brent crude oil, the European benchmark and West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the U.S. benchmark, widened sharply because of the loss of Libyan crude oil production.
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The cost of a barrel of North Sea Brent crude hit a record before pulling back Thursday when priced in euros and British pounds, two currencies that have been weakening of late.
Over the last month gas prices have climbed 9% and with Brent crude prices up 30% since the end of June, odds are we will see further increases at the gas pump.
Brent Crude even went into backwardation, a market structure in which near-term delivery contracts trade at higher prices than longer-termed contracts on fears that supply will be disrupted for an extended amount of time.
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Brent crude's position as the accepted benchmark for pricing most of the world's oil is coming under fire, as experts in the oil market say the blend doesn't reflect true global supply and demand.
And while they say there can be significant variations in some of these, it seems one of the reasons Brent crude continues to appeal is that there's least variation in its price, at around one US cent per barrel over a long period.
Dominated by the benchmark price of Brent crude, the black stuff that flowed from what was once the North Sea's biggest-producing field, the work of these PRAs has been looked at in some technical detail by the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).
It's looked not only at Brent crude but at some other exotic hydrocarbon cocktails - West Texas Intermediate, the Argus Sour Crude Index, Brent Blend or BFOE (the basket of the North Sea's Brent, Forties, Oseberg and Ekofisk), Dubai and Oman, Tapis and Minas, and East Siberia-Pacific Ocean Blend.
This while Brent and West Texas light crude are the bench marks, they are top of the market.
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However, investors should also keep in mind that average prices for crude oil (Brent, WTI, Alaska North Slope) in Q4 2012, have generally remained in line with the previous quarters.
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"We need a better global benchmark for crude oil than the Brent marker, " said Torbjorn Kjus, oil market analyst at DnB NOR.
At a time when global stocks of crude are ample, Brent prices reflect the opposite because of falling North Sea output, analysts say.
North Sea Brent and WTI, the two benchmark crude oils are both sweet, light.
It is assessing two kinds of North Sea crude oils that are like Brent called Troll and Duc and is analyzing the need for additional escalators in the assessment process, like adding more grades to the Brent mechanism.
Some say criticism of the Brent benchmark is unwarranted, particularly as the third benchmark, Dubai crude, is more opaque, with declining production and only a small trading volume compared to Brent or WTI.
Some of the alternatives, such as Russia's Urals crude, are less transparent than Brent, brokers said.
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