Brent Crude Oil Spot - Any commodities experts here?

Hi Guys, Something is driving me crazy. Can anybody tell me where the spot rate for Brent Crude comes from? Sometimes I see it quoted as the “Dated Brent Spot” or something like that. What do they mean by ‘Dated’? Is the spot rate derived by bootstrapping? I don’t believe there is a real-time current price for Brent Crude, if there is I can’t seem to find any info on it. Any help will be appreciated.

I know the Brent Crude price as seen on Bloomberg is just a short-dated future contract price. Which is I guess as close as possible to the actual spot price.

“Dated” means it is ready for delivery. Like the previous poster said, there are quotes for Dated Brent Crude on Bloomberg.

Good analysis of Brent/WTI differences here: http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/01/15/51192/wti-about-as-useful-as-a-chocolate-oven-glove/

Thanks guys

For WTI, if you compare Bloomberg’s front-month contract price and the “spot” price, they’re almost always exactly the same. Significant differences only occasionally happen, and I think those are always on the contract roll dates. So if you believe in proof by analogy, then: You should be pretty safe assuming the Brent spot price is the front-month contract price.