Brent Crude Surges Past $105 as U.S. Energy Policy Faces New Pressure

By 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time on September 10, 2026, Brent crude, the international pricing standard, stood at $105.20 per barrel. The price had risen $3.15, or 3.08 percent, from Wednesday’s starting point of $102.05, breaking through the psychologically significant $105-per-barrel threshold on Thursday.

The benchmark has climbed 20.69 percent in a single month from $87.16 per barrel and has skyrocketed 54.91 percent compared with the $67.91 per barrel rate recorded exactly one year prior. In continuous electronic trading, crude oil prices remain in constant flux as global market participants recalibrate futures positions in response to weekly domestic inventory updates, geopolitical risk assessments, and changing macroeconomic indicators.

Brent crude is the international reference price for approximately two-thirds of globally traded contracts and is traded on the ICE Futures exchange in London. The benchmark is derived from a basket of North Sea crudes, including Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk, and Troll. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) uses Brent as the primary baseline for its Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) and Annual Energy Outlook (AEO).

At the pump, crude oil historically represents more than 50 percent of the final price consumers pay. The remainder consists of refining costs, marketing margins, and federal and state taxes. Federal excise taxes in the United States have remained frozen for over three decades, after the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 set them at 18.4 cents per gallon for unleaded gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel.

State levies vary widely. California routinely imposes taxes exceeding 50 cents per gallon, while Alaska has historically maintained some of the lowest fuel tax rates in the nation. Retail stations also exhibit the pricing friction known to energy economists as the “rockets and feathers” effect: prices often rise almost instantly as stations cover the anticipated replacement cost of wholesale supplies, while declines in crude benchmarks reach the pump more slowly as stations stretch out higher profit margins and offset previous operational losses.

The price spike is elevating freight and logistics costs through sustained increases in diesel and jet fuel. Agricultural products, consumer merchandise, and municipal utility operations are also facing higher retail prices. In heavy manufacturing, power generation, and petrochemical processing, operators with dual-fuel infrastructure are increasingly switching from petroleum-based fuels to natural gas. That shift creates a direct commercial link that pushes regional natural gas prices upward in response to crude oil volatility.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is the domestic benchmark for light, sweet crude oil produced in the United States. It is traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), with physical delivery and storage centered in Cushing, Oklahoma, an essential midstream junction widely called the “Pipeline Crossroads of the World.” WTI typically has a sulfur content of approximately 0.24 percent, making it highly desirable for refining into motor fuels.

The price differential, or spread, between Brent and WTI is shaped by regional inventory levels at Cushing, domestic pipeline capacity, and Gulf Coast export infrastructure. As both benchmarks escalate, fuel substitution becomes more attractive to industrial operators with dual-fuel systems.

Domestic production has historically provided another response to supply deficits. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing enabled rapid production surges in the Permian Basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana, and the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. These developments made the United States the world’s leading crude producer by late 2018 and supplied an operational buffer against foreign supply disruptions.

A separate policy debate centers on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in northeastern Alaska. The 1.5-million-acre region is designated the “1002 Area” under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which President Jimmy Carter signed into law in December 1980.

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act mandated that the federal government hold two lease sales in the resource-rich tract. The Biden administration suspended those leases in 2021 and formally canceled them in late 2023 to protect the Arctic ecosystem. In 2025, the Trump administration moved to reopen the Coastal Plain for commercial oil and gas leasing.

Supporters argue that reopening ANWR will strengthen long-term U.S. energy security, while energy analysts point to the prolonged investment timelines associated with Arctic exploration. Commercial production in remote, extreme environments requires extensive infrastructure development and multi-year capital expenditure cycles before physical volumes can be transported through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) to global markets.

When domestic production adjustments are insufficient, the federal government can use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Congress established the reserve under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) of 1975 after the crippling 1973–1974 Arab oil embargo. It is the largest emergency stockpile of crude oil in the world.

The U.S. Department of Energy manages the SPR across four heavily protected underground salt cavern facilities along the Gulf Coast: Bryan Mound and Big Hill in Texas, and West Hackberry and Bayou Choctaw in Louisiana. The reserve has a maximum capacity of approximately 714 million barrels.

The SPR is designed as an emergency shock absorber rather than an everyday market intervention tool. Presidential authority to draw it down is reserved for severe supply interruptions caused by events such as Gulf Coast hurricanes, major geopolitical conflicts, or international supply shocks. Notable drawdowns occurred during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In 2022, the Biden administration authorized a historic 180-million-barrel emergency release to counter market disruptions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The present climb past $105 per barrel follows earlier episodes of global energy volatility. During the 1973–1974 embargo, the Yom Kippur War prompted Arab members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to impose export cuts and targeted embargos against the United States and other Western nations, causing nominal crude prices to quadruple.

In the mid-1980s, a decade of high prices had encouraged non-OPEC production in Alaska and the North Sea while global demand softened. Saudi Arabia abandoned its role as a swing producer to protect market share, beginning a price war that drove crude from around $30 per barrel to below $10 per barrel by 1986.

Rapid industrialization and expanding demand in emerging markets produced the 2008 super-spike. Brent and WTI reached intraday records of $147.27 and $147.50 per barrel, respectively, in July 2008, before the Great Recession sent prices below $40 per barrel by the end of that year.

The 2020 pandemic collapse followed global COVID-19 travel restrictions and economic lockdowns that eliminated transportation fuel demand. On April 20, 2020, extreme physical storage limitations at Cushing forced the NYMEX WTI May contract to close at an unprecedented negative $37.63 per barrel, while Brent spot prices fell below the $20-per-barrel mark.