The economic ripples caused by the free-falling price of oil in recent months have drawn wider public attention to the daily cost of a barrel of crude. But the figures traditionally used to convey global oil prices—the West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude benchmarks—measure different things and don’t always line up. Today, for example, a barrel of oil costs $45 and change by WTI and a few dollars more by Brent . At times, the difference between the two has topped $20. Traders and economists are familiar with the reasons why WTI and Brent differ. For those newly curious about what falling oil prices mean, it’s worth learning what the benchmarks reveal, and how they’ve changed over time. The basic reason why the numbers diverge is because they are snapshots of oil prices in different places: WTI reflects the U.S. and Brent the North Sea in Europe. At […]