West Texas Intermediate Price Today: Live Chart & Price History

West Texas Intermediate, usually shortened to WTI, is the crude oil grade most U.S. price quotes refer to. It is a light, low sulfur crude, and the spot price tracked here is the one for delivery at Cushing, Oklahoma, a major storage and pipeline hub. When a news site says "oil closed at" a certain level in New York, it is normally talking about the futures contract tied to this same grade, while the figures below are spot prices published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

A spot price is what a barrel costs for near-immediate delivery. It differs from the futures price, which is what traders agree to pay for delivery in a later month, so the two numbers can sit apart on the same day. Because crude trades every business day, any single figure is only a snapshot, and each row below carries the date it applies to.

The latest daily reading is $96.24/barrel, the EIA figure for the date in its label. The trading day before it is shown in the history table, so you can see how far a single session moved. For the live number, open the EIA spot price page at eia.gov, which updates as new data is released.

Weekly numbers are simple averages of the daily closes in that week. That is why a weekly figure can look quite different from a single day's price when the market swings.

Monthly averages smooth out the day to day noise and make it easier to see direction. They are built the same way as the weekly ones, by averaging each day's spot close across the month.

A single month tells you little on its own. Compare it with the months around it and with the yearly averages below before drawing any conclusion about where prices sit.

Yearly averages show where crude has spent most of its time over a full cycle. They hide the spikes and dips inside each year, so treat them as context rather than a guide to what a barrel costs now.

Brent is the other benchmark you will see quoted, and it prices North Sea crude that is shipped by sea. EIA's weekly spot table lists it next to WTI. For the most recent week in the history table, Brent averaged $120.03/barrel, compared with $98.07/barrel for WTI over the same week. The gap between the two shifts with shipping costs, regional supply, pipeline capacity and local demand, so it is not a fixed number.

EIA publishes a monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook. Its headline oil price forecast is for Brent, not WTI, so the rows below should not be read as a WTI projection.

Forecasts are revised every month as new supply, inventory and demand information arrives. Check the latest release at eia.gov before relying on any forecast figure.

Crude prices respond to a mix of forces, and no single one explains every move:

• Supply decisions by producers, including U.S. shale output and OPEC policy.
• Demand from refiners, which shifts with the economy, the season and travel patterns.
• Inventory levels at Cushing and across the U.S., which signal whether the market is tight or well supplied.
• Geopolitical events that threaten production or shipping routes.
• The strength of the U.S. dollar, since oil is priced in dollars worldwide.

Gasoline and diesel prices follow crude, but with a lag and with other costs layered on, including refining margins, distribution, and taxes. A change in the WTI spot price therefore does not show up at the station at the same rate or on the same day. Retail fuel prices are published separately by EIA.