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Energy & Oil

Oil only becomes a recession story once its cost claims a large enough share of the economy. Between the crude barrel and the power bill, the shock often forms in the middle of the chain: refinery utilisation, crack spreads, inventories, the WTI-Brent gap. The oil-burden threshold for US recessions since 1970, daily WTI and refining margins since 1986, weekly EIA stocks, every US refinery closure and US electricity prices by sector are all here.

49pieces
13in-depth analyses
24datasets

Where to start

Three reads, in order: the basics, the full mechanism, then what the data says.

01The basics Reading the refinery utilisation rate: the threshold, the season, the turnarounds A refinery runs full near ninety percent, not a hundred: the last slice of nameplate capacity is a maintenance margin that cannot be squeezed out. BeginnerRead → 02The full mechanism WTI: Reading Crude Oil Price as a Macro Signal of Economic Cycles Why WTI, the U.S. benchmark crude priced at Cushing, functions as a global macro barometer: inflation, recession, geopolitics. In-depth analysisRead → 03The evidence Oil Shocks and US Recessions: The 4%-of-GDP Burden Threshold (1970–2026) Peak oil burden of each US oil shock since 1970, in % of GDP, from monthly averages. StudyRead →

Research and data

Our in-depth research and the downloadable series on the subject.

Dataset $99.64Latest value · November 2026 DCOILWTICO: Daily WTI Crude Oil Spot Price from FRED (1986–2026) See the data → Dataset $107.03Latest value · November 2026 DCOILBRENTEU: Daily Brent Crude Oil Spot Price from FRED (1987–2026) See the data → StudyWTI Supply Shocks and US Core Inflation, 1986–2026 StudyThe WTI–Brent Spread (1987–2026): 39 Years of Divergences Show US Logistics, Not Geopolitics, Drove the Gap 39 years of WTI–Brent data: the spread never exceeded $13 outside 2011–2015, when US shale outpaced Oklahoma's pipelines.

All analyses, by angle

Grouped by sub-topic rather than by date. Filter to get straight to the point.

Physical Commodity Markets24

The sub-pillar →

Commodities as Macroeconomic Regime Signals6

The sub-pillar →

Physical Constraints on the Economy3

The sub-pillar →

Other angles9

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This topic also exists in French.Énergie et pétrole, 24 pieces →