The chart below shows the forecasted price made by analysts compared to the actual Brent oil price outturn.
But falling European demand means falling Brent oil prices, which in turn means cheap Russian-based Urals Mountain oil prices that already trade at a discount to Brent.
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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Without reeling off any more facts and acquisition figures, the key point to register is that wherever you look, China is linking physical assets to virtual trades, not just to feed gas market liquidity, but to rebalance WTI and Brent for oil.
"We need a better global benchmark for crude oil than the Brent marker, " said Torbjorn Kjus, oil market analyst at DnB NOR.
Brent crude, the oil benchmark, has gained nearly 12% since the end of June, while natural gas has dropped 1.3% and coal has dropped more than 10%.
However, investors should also keep in mind that average prices for crude oil (Brent, WTI, Alaska North Slope) in Q4 2012, have generally remained in line with the previous quarters.
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Oil and Gas UK - the offshore industry body - said oil transported through the Brent pipeline system represented 10% of the UK's North Sea oil production.
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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Greenpeace's solicitor Razi Mireskandari told Mr Justice Morland at the High Court that in the last few days of its campaign, Greenpeace made an error in taking samples of oil from the Brent Spar.
The Chinook had been carrying oil workers from the Brent Field.
Dated Brent is by far the most important international oil benchmark (accounting for 65% of global price points).
Brent crude prices have fallen on hopes that oil production in Libya will return soon, even though those assumptions may prove to be overly optimistic.
That applies both to gas and oil, and especially to WTI and Brent benchmarks.
The major part of oil shipments by international producers is denominated in Brent crude, so talk of a commodity supercycle lacks credibility.
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Oil producers added pressure in the market after Brent futures on Thursday recorded its lowest settlement price since December 2010 and WTI crude notched its lowest settlement since October 2011.
The oil flowing into Cushing contributed to a crude oil bottleneck there, and was one of the reasons that the Brent-WTI differential developed.
But US oil prices are subdued, having lost their long-time link with the Brent crude benchmark.
Concerns over the surging cost of Brent crude are growing as analysts warn that Europe could be at the center of an oil-price shock.
Brent crude's position as the accepted benchmark for pricing most of the world's oil is coming under fire, as experts in the oil market say the blend doesn't reflect true global supply and demand.
Margin requirements in the spotlight this week again after the CME Group, owner of futures exchange NYMEX, announced a 25% hike in collateral requirements for crude oil futures, putting initial, and short-lived, pressure on WTI and Brent prices.
The price signal at issue is the way that the WTI (West Texas Intermediate) oil price benchmark has diverged so greatly from the other three, Mars, LLS and Brent.
Oil prices dropped in Asia, with US light crude down by 1.9%, and Brent crude sliding 1.6%.
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