Why a trader cares
Crude often moves first on headlines, but the durability of the move depends on whether prompt structure and physical balances begin to agree.
MarketsCrude Oil
Crude oil workflowLive
Test the crude narrative from prompt price through physical barrels.
The crude workflow brings WTI and Brent market reaction together with curve structure, weekly balances, visible flows, freight, positioning, news, and model context.
Question answered
Is the crude move confirmed across structure, inventories, flows, and participation?
Built for more than one level of market experience
Start simple. Keep the professional context.
Every screen preserves the instrument, period, unit, source, and limitation while explaining why the evidence matters.
Start here01
Identify the observation before interpreting it.
Read the instrument, unit, timestamp, period, and source first. A weekly stock estimate and a five-minute futures quote answer different questions.
Desk read02
Compare level, change, and historical context.
The current value matters less without its direction of travel, seasonal baseline, related markets, and the catalyst that moved expectations.
Professional use03
Demand cross-source confirmation and preserve uncertainty.
Treat every dataset as evidence with a release lag, methodology, revision risk, and known blind spots. The workflow should be reproducible after the fact.
Component guide
What each component means—and how a desk reads it.
Definitions stay plain enough to learn from, while the desk read preserves the mechanism, cadence, and source a professional user expects.
WTI and Brent
In plain English
WTI anchors the U.S. inland and Cushing-linked market; Brent is the primary waterborne international reference.
Professional read
Their outright prices and relative behavior help separate U.S.-specific balance changes from broader seaborne crude conditions.
- Cadence
- Five-minute price refresh; daily official history
- Source
- Licensed market feeds and listed futures history
Prompt and six-month curves
In plain English
M1-M2 measures immediate structure, while M1-M6 tests whether the shape extends beyond the very front.
Professional read
If M1-M2 tightens but M1-M6 does not, label it front-end tightening rather than broad confirmation.
- Cadence
- Daily settlement analytics
- Source
- Roll-aware WTI and Brent contract history
U.S. petroleum balance
In plain English
Commercial crude, SPR, Cushing, PADD stocks, production, refinery inputs, utilization, imports, exports, and products form the reported balance.
Professional read
Explain a headline draw through its mechanism: refinery demand, trade, domestic supply, regional movement, or reporting adjustment.
- Cadence
- Weekly EIA release
- Source
- EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report
Waterborne and freight evidence
In plain English
Crude-on-water estimates, tanker observations, TD3C, and TD20 provide transport and visible-flow context.
Professional read
Rising freight may reflect demand for ships, route disruption, or risk premium; pair it with vessel movement and the commodity curve.
- Cadence
- Two-hour AIS summaries; daily freight history
- Source
- Terrestrial AIS and listed freight futures
Participation and narrative
In plain English
CFTC positioning, market-impact news, Model Signal, and the Thesis Engine describe participation and the current research case.
Professional read
Use them to assess crowding and consistency, not to replace the physical balance with sentiment.
- Cadence
- Hourly to weekly, by source
- Source
- CFTC, news enrichment, and Enerlytics models
What data it uses
The evidence underneath the screen.
- WTI and Brent price history
- M1-M2 and M1-M6 curve history
- Commercial crude, SPR, Cushing, PADD, refining, and trade
- Crude on water, tanker freight, and AIS
- CFTC, news, models, and theses
How Enerlytics interprets it
Method before conclusion.
- 01
Distinguishes prompt tightening from broad curve confirmation
- 02
Separates commercial crude from SPR and regional storage
- 03
Uses freight and visible flows as context rather than exact global cargo truth
How it connects
Evidence moves through a workflow.
- 01Price
- 02Curve
- 03Inventories
- 04Physical flows
- 05Positioning
- 06Model
- 07Thesis
What not to infer
No single inventory print, headline, or curve state is a complete crude-oil signal.
Worked market workflow
Example: testing a prompt-tightness claim
A strong crude workflow moves from observed price to market structure, then into the physical mechanism and participation.
- 1
Observe
WTI rallies and M1-M2 widens over five sessions.
- 2
Decompose
Check Cushing, refinery inputs, imports, exports, and production rather than relying on total crude alone.
- 3
Cross-check
Look for consistent Brent structure, freight, tanker, and crude-on-water evidence.
- 4
Challenge
Ask whether positioning is crowded or whether the move depends on one transient headline.
- 5
Record
Build a thesis with an explicit horizon and the condition that would invalidate prompt tightness.
Methodology and limitations
Trust comes from showing the seams.
Stocks are location-specific
Commercial crude, SPR, Cushing, and PADD inventories have different availability and market implications. Enerlytics keeps those categories separate.
Product supplied is an estimate
It is a balance-derived proxy for disappearance, not a literal real-time meter of end-consumer demand.
Verified production coverage
Coverage reviewed against the production data store on October 2, 2026. Live totals continue to grow.
- Production stores 71 weekly petroleum series with history back to 2010.
- Roll-aware WTI and Brent M1/M2/M6 spread history currently extends back to 2023.
Primary references
Enerlytics links the underlying methodology so customers can distinguish a product interpretation from the source definition.
See the product
A real Enerlytics workflow—not a conceptual mockup.
Weekly research, recaps, and video explainers
See the evidence used in a real market conversation.
Enerlytics publishes weekly market recaps, component explainers, and thesis walkthroughs. For Crude Oil, the recurring desk question is: Was this week's crude move driven by a durable balance change, an isolated front-end dislocation, or a headline premium?
Weekly market notes →Written recaps tied to the same evidence workflow.Public signal reviews →Current states with accountability and limitations.Video recaps on X →Short market recaps, chart walkthroughs, and thesis updates.Explainers on Threads →Component education and the reasoning behind each market read.
Related guides
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