Brent crude trades near $73 per barrel on Wednesday

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Brent crude oil, the North Sea benchmark, is trading at around $73 per barrel on Wednesday, marking a 0.3% decline in value.

Russian Urals crude, which consists of heavy sour oil from the Urals-Volga region and light West Siberian Siberian Light, is being traded (futures contracts) at around $59 per barrel.

The price discount between Brent and Urals grades ranges from $8 to $15 per barrel.

The main trading platforms for oil are international commodity exchanges such as NYMEX (WTI, USA) and ICE (Brent, Europe), as well as regional exchanges like SPIMEx (Urals, Russia) and SGX (Asia).

Trading is conducted through futures and spot contracts linked to benchmark crude grades: American WTI, European Brent, and Asian Dubai/Oman, which form the global pricing framework.

This overview was presented by Alexei Grishchenko, Ph.D., Professor of Operational and Sectoral Management at the Higher School of Management, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.