What is being traded, by whom, and where a published price comes from.
The same barrel at different dates, and what the shape of that costs.
How a few reference grades end up pricing hundreds of real cargoes.
Crude is an input. The margin between it and its products drives demand.
Who produces, who consumes, and why the two never quite reconcile.
Stocks are the market's memory of every past imbalance.
A barrel priced in one place is worth something else in another. Freight is the difference.
The largest importer, and the least transparent major participant.
Not where price goes, but how much it moves on the way.
What a descriptive statistic can honestly tell a desk, and what it cannot.
Every number has a source, a lag and a reliability. Most tools hide all three.