Urals oil is a reference oil brand used as a basis for pricing of the Russian export oil mixture. It is a mix of heavy sour oil of the Urals and the Volga region with light oil of Western Siberia.[1] Other reference oils are Brent, West Texas Intermediate and Dubai.
Urals brand oil is supplied through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline system and the Druzhba pipeline. Urals oil futures trade on Moscow Exchange.[2] There was also an effort to trade it on NYMEX under the name of REBCO (Russian Export Blend Crude Oil).[3]
Urals grade oil was traded in Northwestern Europe on June 25, 2020, at a premium to Brent of $2.35/bbl – a record in the entire history of monitoring since September 1994.[4] Since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the price of Urals oil has dipped to $15–20 under the price of Brent.[5]