Author: Ilan

Brent crude is a primary classification of crude oil used as a reference price for trading crude oil around the world. It is also known as London Brent and Brent Blend.

It was first extracted in 1976 from a small area in the North Sea called the Brent field by Shell U.K. Limited (now Royal Dutch Shell), which made it a practice of naming oil fields after water birds.  For this particular area, the name comes from a small water bird called the Brent goose.

While the Brent field is now no longer economically viable, Brent crude is now comprised of oil extracted from fifteen later-developed oil fields located throughout the North Sea, an area of roughly 220,000 square miles.  This area comprises by far the largest oil reserves in western Europe – land or sea.