As of August 2025, the average annual price of Brent crude oil stood at 71.3 U.S. dollars per barrel. This is over nine U.S. dollars lower than the 2024 average. Brent is the world's leading price benchmark for Atlantic basin crude oils. Crude oil is one of the most closely observed commodity prices as it influences costs across all stages of the production process and consequently alters the price of consumer goods as well. What determines crude oil benchmarks? In the past decade, crude oil prices have been especially volatile. Their inherent inelasticity regarding short-term changes in demand and supply means that oil prices are erratic by nature. However, since the 2009 financial crisis, many commercial developments have greatly contributed to price volatility, such as economic growth by BRIC countries like China and India, and the advent of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in the U.S. The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war are examples of geopolitical events dictating prices. Light crude oils - Brent and WTI Brent Crude is considered a classification of sweet light crude oil and acts as a benchmark price for oil around the world. It is considered a sweet light crude oil due to its low sulfur content and low density and may be easily refined into gasoline. This oil originates in the North Sea and comprises several different oil blends, including Brent Blend and Ekofisk crude. Often, this crude oil is refined in Northwest Europe. Another sweet light oil often referenced alongside UK Brent is West Texas Intermediate (WTI). WTI oil prices amounted to 76.55 U.S. dollars per barrel in 2024.

On October 27, 2025, the Brent crude oil price stood at 65.14 U.S. dollars per barrel, compared to 61.31 U.S. dollars for WTI oil and 67.54 U.S. dollars for the OPEC basket. Oil prices rose slightly that week.Europe's Brent crude oil, the U.S. WTI crude oil, and OPEC's basket are three of the most important benchmarks used by traders as reference for global oil and gasoline prices. Lowest ever oil prices during coronavirus pandemic In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic resulted in crude oil prices hitting a major slump as oil demand drastically declined following lockdowns and travel restrictions. Initial outlooks and uncertainty surrounding the course of the pandemic brought about a disagreement between two of the largest oil producers, Russia and Saudi Arabia, in early March. Bilateral talks between global oil producers ended in agreement on April 13th, with promises to cut petroleum output and hopes rising that these might help stabilize the oil price in the coming weeks. However, with storage facilities and oil tankers quickly filling up, fears grew over where to store excess oil, leading to benchmark prices seeing record negative prices between April 20 and April 22, 2020. How crude oil prices are determined As with most commodities, crude oil prices are impacted by supply and demand, as well as inventories and market sentiment. However, as oil is most often traded in future contracts (where a contract is agreed upon while product delivery will follow in the next two to three months), market speculation is one of the principal determinants for oil prices. Traders make conclusions on how production output and consumer demand will likely develop over the coming months, leaving room for uncertainty. Spot prices differ from futures in so far as they reflect the current market price of a commodity.

Learn about the factors that influence oil and gas prices and how they have evolved over the years, including supply disruptions, geopolitical tensions, economic growth, and the impact on various sectors.

According to a 2025 survey, oil producers operating in the Permian region needed WTI oil prices to amount to a minimum of ** U.S. dollars per barrel in order to profitably drill a new well. This compared to a minimum breakeven price of ** U.S. dollars per barrel for existing wells. The monthly average WTI oil price ranged between ** and ** U.S. dollars per barrel around the time of the survey. Most productive oil basins Operators in shale basins have the lowest average breakeven prices for new wells. However, when it comes to existing wells, operators in the Permian (Delaware) basin can afford even lower oil prices. The Permian basin, located in Texas and New Mexico, accounts for the greatest U.S. oil production output of any region. In 2024, production in the Permian reached nearly *********** barrels per day - more than **** times the amount extracted from the neighboring Eagle Ford rock formation. Texas is leading oil producing state With both regions located in Texas, it is not surprising that this is also the leading crude oil producing U.S. state. Nearly two billion barrels worth of crude oil were extracted in Texas per year, far more than any other state. Texas is home to a total of five major oil and gas formations.

Gasoline fell to 1.86 USD/Gal on December 2, 2025, down 0.53% from the previous day. Over the past month, Gasoline's price has fallen 2.79%, and is down 4.95% compared to the same time last year, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. Gasoline - values, historical data, forecasts and news - updated on December of 2025.

Oil prices trend

The data contains oil prices from 1998 from 8 countries.

Content

The data is self explanatory. The price is described in USD for the crude oil data and in local currencies for the fuel products.

Acknowledgements

The data is available from IEA website

United Kingdom BOE Forecast: Brent Crude Oil Price data was reported at 71.000 USD/Barrel in 2021. This records a decrease from the previous number of 74.000 USD/Barrel for 2020. United Kingdom BOE Forecast: Brent Crude Oil Price data is updated yearly, averaging 72.500 USD/Barrel from Dec 2014 (Median) to 2021, with 8 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 81.000 USD/Barrel in 2018 and a record low of 43.000 USD/Barrel in 2015. United Kingdom BOE Forecast: Brent Crude Oil Price data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Bank of England. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.P009: Crude Oil and Gas Prices: Forecast.

Crude Oil fell to 59.17 USD/Bbl on December 2, 2025, down 0.25% from the previous day. Over the past month, Crude Oil's price has fallen 3.08%, and is down 15.40% compared to the same time last year, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. Crude Oil - values, historical data, forecasts and news - updated on December of 2025.

In August 2025, the average price of one barrel of Brent crude oil was 67.87 U.S. dollars. This was a decrease from the previous month and 12 U.S. dollars below July 2024 prices. Brent terminology and most common uses Brent is the world's leading price benchmark for Atlantic basin crude oils. It is used to price two thirds of the internationally traded crude oil supplies and is also the most significant crude oil benchmark for Europe. Brent crude originates in the North Sea and includes oils from Brent and Forties Oil Field in the United Kingdom, and from the Oseborg and Ekofisk oil fields, both oil reserves in Norway. Other names for Brent are Brent Blend, London Brent and Brent petroleum. The name Brent comes from the Brent oil field, located north-east of the Shetland Islands, and thus part of the United Kingdom. Because the Brent oil field already passed its production peak, today the benchmark Brent includes oil from the other three major oil fields. Brent, next to West Texas Intermediate (WTI), is one of the lightest crude oils. With a low content of sulfur, it is ranged among the so-called sweet crude oils. Most of the Brent crude oil is refined into gasoline and middle distillates in Northwest Europe. Benchmark oil prices Other crucial benchmarks for crude oil prices are the already mentioned U.S.- WTI and Dubai Crude (Fateh). They are indispensable for referencing the many types and grades of oil on the global market. In the past 20 years, the annual price for one barrel of Brent crude oil saw a net increase. For example, the average price per barrel stood at 80.53 U.S. dollars in 2024.

Context

The crude oil price movements are subject to diverse influencing factors. This dataset was retrieved from the U.S. Energy Information Administration: Europe Brent Spot Price FOB (Dollars per Barrel)

Content

The aim of this dataset and work is to predict future Crude Oil Prices based on the historical data available in the dataset. The data contains daily Brent oil prices from 17th of May 1987 until the 13th of November 2022.

Acknowledgements

Dataset is available on U.S. Energy Information Administration: Europe Brent Spot Price FOB (Dollars per Barrel) which is updated on weekly bases.

Inspiration

The vast competition in the Data Science field and the availability of the new Prophet method made it easier to predict future prices, that is what you may find when predicting the oil prices with this dataset.

Europe Brent Spot Price FOB (Dollars per Barrel)

This dataset contains daily historical prices for Europe Brent Spot Price FOB (Free On Board) measured in dollars per barrel. The data spans from May 20, 1987 to September 29, 2025, providing a comprehensive time series of one of the world's most important crude oil benchmarks.

Brent crude is a major trading classification of sweet light crude oil that serves as a major benchmark price for purchases of oil worldwide. This dataset is valuable for energy market analysis, economic research, commodity trading strategies, and understanding historical oil price trends.

The data was sourced from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), which collects, analyzes, and disseminates independent and impartial energy information.

License: CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain) Source: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/RBRTED.htm

The 2025 annual OPEC basket price stood at ***** U.S. dollars per barrel as of August. This would be lower than the 2024 average, which amounted to ***** U.S. dollars. The abbreviation OPEC stands for Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and includes Algeria, Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and the United Arab Emirates. The aim of the OPEC is to coordinate the oil policies of its member states. It was founded in 1960 in Baghdad, Iraq. The OPEC Reference Basket The OPEC crude oil price is defined by the price of the so-called OPEC (Reference) basket. This basket is an average of prices of the various petroleum blends that are produced by the OPEC members. Some of these oil blends are, for example: Saharan Blend from Algeria, Basra Light from Iraq, Arab Light from Saudi Arabia, BCF 17 from Venezuela, et cetera. By increasing and decreasing its oil production, OPEC tries to keep the price between a given maxima and minima. Benchmark crude oil The OPEC basket is one of the most important benchmarks for crude oil prices worldwide. Other significant benchmarks are UK Brent, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), and Dubai Crude (Fateh). Because there are many types and grades of oil, such benchmarks are indispensable for referencing them on the global oil market. The 2025 fall in prices was the result of weakened demand outlooks exacerbated by extensive U.S. trade tariffs.

Switzerland Brent Crude Oil Price data was reported at 75.710 USD/Barrel in Oct 2018. This records a decrease from the previous number of 82.790 USD/Barrel for Sep 2018. Switzerland Brent Crude Oil Price data is updated monthly, averaging 25.785 USD/Barrel from Jan 1970 (Median) to Oct 2018, with 586 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 139.390 USD/Barrel in Jun 2008 and a record low of 2.230 USD/Barrel in Dec 1970. Switzerland Brent Crude Oil Price data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Swiss National Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Switzerland – Table CH.P002: Fuel Prices.

Learn about the unit of measurement for crude oil price, barrels (bbl), and how it is typically quoted in dollars per barrel. Discover why this unit became standard, its use in the oil and gas industry, and factors influencing crude oil prices.

UK oil and natural gas production is on long-term decline as old oil and gas fields in the North Sea mature and near the end of their life cycle. Oil and gas extracting companies reaped the rewards of an upsurge in global prices through 2022-23, leading to sharp revenue growth. However, this quickly turned around in 2023-24, with most major companies’ revenue nosediving along with oil prices as oil and gas from America flooded the market, slightly outpacing demand. Still, revenue is expected to expand at a compound annual rate of 5.1% over the five years through 2025-26 to £23 billion, owing primarily to the significant price hikes of 2021-22 and 2022-23. This includes a forecast dip of 4.3% in 2025-26, owing to oil and gas prices edging down. Profit is also slated to fall over the year. Global oil and gas prices greatly affect the industry's performance, with the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) putting supply cuts in place and global tensions resulting in price peaks and troughs. In October 2022, OPEC instituted a supply cut of two million barrels of crude oil per day, driving Brent Crude Oil prices up to US$110 (£87.80) per barrel, which was extended until March 2025. At the same time, the sanctions on Russian oil and gas imports because of the Russia-Ukraine conflict add further impetus to prices. The EU has banned imports of Russian-made oil and gas, providing opportunities for UK exporters. Crude oil prices remain high, but significant oil production from non-OPEC countries has made oil prices plummet since July 2024. Despite mounting tensions in the Middle East having the potential to cut oil supply from the region, the ongoing political tensions have yet to significantly impact global prices, with prices falling by 15.8% in the year to August 2025. Oil and gas prices are likely to continue inching downwards in the coming years. The UK government has implemented policies to create a more favourable environment for extractors in the North Sea to improve UK energy security. However, the depletion of natural resources, the high cost of extraction, low gas and oil prices and the global energy transition will threaten the industry's long-term viability. Revenue is forecast to climb at a compound annual rate of 2% over the five years through 2030-31 to £25.4 billion, supported by two new major oil and gas fields, Jackdaw and Rosebank.

You are members of the analytic department in one of the Alberta Oil Sands extraction companies. You are given a current project to collect and clean the data and choose, fit and validate the model for further continuous prediction of demand for the company's products. This will allow the company to assess profitability and to set the appropriate volumes of production.

In short, you need to use the historical data of https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/rwtcW.htm in its weekly version, and to predict it for the available weeks of 2021, to evaluate the quality of your prediction and to compose a report for your management. Before working with real data, you first check the intended model on simulated data.

Below we suggest the specific steps of analysis for those who like the detailed instructions. However, these steps may be changed by those who prefer free creativity.

The moral that we are trying to learn in this assignment is that it is easy to forecast series generated by a certain family of models. However, it is hard to forecast the real cases.

We will study the necessary material for the whole semester. However, steps in italic, you can start immediately. I suggest you to start early, because the volume is high.

Part 1. Artificial data

1.1. Simulation.

1.1.1. For ARIMA(p, d, q), set p = 2
d = 1
q = 2
phi_1 = -.2
phi_2 = .15
theta_1 = .3
theta_2 = -.1
sd = 0.03
and generate a series of sample size n = 1000, using this model. 1.1.2. Add a linear trend y(t) = b0 + b1*t, using the coefficients intercept b0 = -1 and slope b1= 0.0015. 1.1.3. Apply an exponential function.

1.2. Exploratory analysis in the order, inverse to the simulation steps.

1.2.1. Divide the generated set into a training set head and a test set tail. 1.2.2. Logarithm the training set series. 1.2.3. Detect a linear trend by regression. Compare the estimated trend parameters to true ones. 1.2.4. Detrend the series. 1.2.5. In the same axes, plot the original ARIMA simulation and the current (trended, exponentiated, logarithmed and finally detrended) series. They should have the same shape, but differ by a bit of shift and stretch. 1.2.6. ARIMA fit. 1.2.6.1. By 3 nested loops over p, d and q between 0 and 3, print all values of AIC in 3 4-by-4-tables. Choose the triple, minimizing AIC. Compare it to the true (p, d, q) triple and comment. 1.2.6.2. Fit the model by auto.arima command. Comment on its choice of p, d and q, comparing to true values and those chosen by triple loop. 1.2.6.3. Leave out those attempts of order estimations and choose the true (p, d, q) triple. Fit ARIMA(2, 1, 2), using the function forecast::Arima, to the training data. 1.2.7. Compare the estimated ARIMA parameters to true ones. Comment on goodness of fit.

1.3. Forecasting the simulated series.

1.3.1. Forecast the testing part of the ARIMA, using forecast::forecast function. 1.3.2. Add the estimated trend. 1.3.3. Exponentiate that trended forecast.

1.4. Evaluation of the results

1.4.1. Plot the forecast values, prediction interval, and the real testing set in the same axes. 1.4.2. Plot acf of the testing set and its prediction, and ccf between them. 1.4.3. Plot the residuals and their acf. 1.4.4. Estimate the forecast error.

Part 2. Real data.

2.1. Data sourcing and visualization.

2.1.1. Read the dataset https://www.kaggle.com/statistics101guy/wti-spot-price-fob-dollars-per-barrel 2.1.2. Plot the series and its acf.

2.2. Exploratory analysis

2.2.1. Divide the series into a training set (up to 2020 inclusively) and testing set (2021). 2.2.2. Logarithm the series. 2.2.3. Estimate the linear trend by the least squares procedure. 2.2.4. Detrend the series. 2.2.5. By “auto.arima” command of “forecast” library, fit ARIMA(p, d, q) to the training data.

2.3. Forecasting in the order, inverse to the exploratory analysis steps

2.3.1. Using the “forecast” function of the “forecast” library, forecast your ARIMA model for the period of testing set. 2.3.2. Extrapolate your linear trend to this period and add it to your ARIMA forecast. 2.3.3. Exponentiate the result.

2.4. Evaluation of the forecast quality

2.4.1. Plot the forecast values, prediction interval, and the real testing set in the same axes. 2.4.2. Plot acf of the testing set and its prediction, and ccf between them. 2.4.3. Plot the residuals and their acf. 2.4.4. Estimate the forecast error. 2.4.5. Comment on the results

Part 3. Reporting

3.1. Compose a business report of about 10 pages length, following the approximate structure:

3.1.1. Title page, listing the group members, project title, school, course, submission date. 3.1.2. Executive summary, containing your view of the problem setting, brief description of the intended analysis and all that usually pertains to this section 3.1.3. Ana...

Brent fell to 63.05 USD/Bbl on December 2, 2025, down 0.19% from the previous day. Over the past month, Brent's price has fallen 2.84%, and is down 14.36% compared to the same time last year, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. Brent crude oil - values, historical data, forecasts and news - updated on December of 2025.

Indonesia Crude Oil Price: Anoa data was reported at 64.820 USD/Barrel in Jul 2019. This records an increase from the previous number of 64.770 USD/Barrel for Jun 2019. Indonesia Crude Oil Price: Anoa data is updated monthly, averaging 74.410 USD/Barrel from Jan 2006 (Median) to Jul 2019, with 163 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 140.070 USD/Barrel in Jul 2008 and a record low of 29.570 USD/Barrel in Jan 2016. Indonesia Crude Oil Price: Anoa data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Directorate General of Oil and Gas. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Indonesia – Table ID.RBH003: Crude Oil Price.

Second quarter energy survey results revealed that Tenth District energy activity continued to decline but is expected to rebound. Firms reported that oil prices needed to be on average $64 per barrel for drilling to be profitable, and $91 per barrel for a substantial increase in drilling to occur. Natural gas prices needed to be $3.47 per million Btu for drilling to be profitable on average, and $4.68 per million Btu for drilling to increase substantially.

Crude Oil Price: Indonesia data was reported at 61.320 USD/Barrel in Jul 2019. This records an increase from the previous number of 60.990 USD/Barrel for Jun 2019. Crude Oil Price: Indonesia data is updated monthly, averaging 42.500 USD/Barrel from Dec 1991 (Median) to Jul 2019, with 332 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 134.960 USD/Barrel in Jul 2008 and a record low of 9.990 USD/Barrel in Dec 1998. Crude Oil Price: Indonesia data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Directorate General of Oil and Gas. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Indonesia – Table ID.PC001: Retail Price: By Major Commodities.