The ETF purports to track the price of West Texas intermediate crude oil.
West Texas Intermediate crude and ICE Brent crude are both priced in dollars.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark fuel, remained largely flat between January 20 and Friday, when the most recent survey was conducted.
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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As you can see in the chart below, over the past 5-, 15- and 30-year cycles, West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices head higher in March, and have generally continued to climb through September.
Cushing is the price settlement point for West Texas Intermediate Sweet Crude Oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX).
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.
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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The oil, from producers in western Canada, is gooey, acidic and high in sulfur--harder to refine than benchmark West Texas Intermediate (light, sweet) crude.
Indeed, Brent has gained in dominance in recent years as investors have moved away from West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude oil benchmark.
Bakken crude even trades at a discount to West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the benchmark oil for the US set by prices in Cushing, Oklahoma.
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