About US Oil Gauge

US Oil Gauge is a reference site for crude oil prices. It publishes the two main benchmarks, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent, using official data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and covers their full history since 1986 by year and decade, in nominal and inflation-adjusted dollars.

The site is built to answer factual questions quickly: what oil costs now, what it cost in a given year, how recent prices compare with the past, and where the numbers come from. It does not offer forecasts, trading advice or market commentary.

Principles

• Official sources only. Prices come from the EIA and inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. See data sources.
• Show the method. Every calculation is described on the methodology page, and every data page names its source series.
• No gaps filled in. If a source has not published a value, the site shows nothing rather than an estimate.
• Open data. The datasets behind each page can be downloaded as CSV.

Related sites

US Gas Gauge covers retail gasoline prices and US Power Gauge covers electricity.

Questions or corrections: see the contact page.