🛢️ Oil Price Calculator

Oil prices are driven by OPEC+ supply decisions, global demand, inventory levels, geopolitical events (wars, sanctions), and US dollar strength. It's one of the most politically sensitive commodities.

It uses the yearly average price per barrel of WTI crude oil, calculates how many 'barrels' your investment would have purchased, and multiplies by the selling price.

WTI (West Texas Intermediate) is a grade of crude oil used as a major benchmark in financial markets. It's traded on the NYMEX exchange and serves as the primary US oil price reference.

Due to pandemic demand collapse and storage shortages, WTI crude futures went negative to -$37/barrel — an unprecedented event in history. Traders were literally paying others to take oil off their hands.

Through oil ETFs (USO, BNO), energy company stocks (ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips), NYMEX futures, or energy sector ETFs (XLE). Be cautious with commodity ETFs due to contango risk.

Oil ETFs suffer from contango — when future-month contracts cost more than current ones, the ETF loses money rolling contracts forward each month. USO lost over 90% of its value over years even when oil prices partially recovered.

In 2000, oil was ~$30/barrel. $1,000 would have bought ~33 'barrels'. At ~$70 today, they'd be worth ~$2,333 — a return of ~133%. However, investing via ETFs would have yielded far less due to contango losses.