Energy indicators
The prices we show on the home page: what each one is, what unit it is in and where we get the data. Production, wells and Vaca Muerta: The sector in numbers.
WTI — West Texas Intermediate
- Embargo petrolero árabe (oct 1973)
- Revolución iraní (ene 1979)
- Guerra Irán-Irak (sep 1980)
- Contrachoque: la OPEP abre la canilla (ene 1986)
- Irak invade Kuwait (ago 1990)
- Pico previo a la crisis financiera (jul 2008)
- Shale de EE.UU. y la OPEP no recorta (nov 2014)
- Pandemia de COVID-19 (abr 2020)
- Rusia invade Ucrania (mar 2022)
- Tensión en el estrecho de Ormuz (abr 2026)
Máximo del período: 133,9 USD/bbl (jun 2008). Promedio mensual del precio spot del WTI (vía FRED) desde 1946; antes de 1974 el precio estaba regulado en EE.UU. y casi no se movía. Los meses más recientes, con el futuro del primer mes.
Unit: USD per barrel (bbl = 159 liters)
Light, low-sulfur crude oil produced in the U.S. It is the benchmark price for North American oil.
It trades as a futures contract on NYMEX (CME Group, New York), with physical delivery at Cushing, Oklahoma. We show the front-month contract (the nearest to expiry).
Source: CL futures quote (NYMEX) taken from Yahoo Finance, delayed by up to 15 minutes. The change is against the previous day's close. More information: CME Group · WTI Crude Oil ↗
Brent
- Irak invade Kuwait (ago 1990)
- Pico previo a la crisis financiera (jul 2008)
- Shale de EE.UU. y la OPEP no recorta (nov 2014)
- Pandemia de COVID-19 (abr 2020)
- Rusia invade Ucrania (mar 2022)
- Tensión en el estrecho de Ormuz (abr 2026)
Máximo del período: 132,7 USD/bbl (jul 2008). Promedio mensual del precio spot (EIA, vía FRED) desde 1987; los meses más recientes, con el futuro del primer mes.
Unit: USD per barrel (bbl = 159 liters)
A blend of North Sea oils (Europe). It takes its name from the Brent field, off the coast of Scotland; today the basket includes other fields in the area.
It is the most widely used international benchmark: it sets the price of a large share of the oil traded in the world, and it is the one against which Argentine crude prices (Medanito, Escalante) are usually compared.
It trades as a futures contract on ICE Futures Europe (London). We show the front-month contract.
Source: Brent futures quote (ICE) taken from Yahoo Finance, delayed by up to 15 minutes. The change is against the previous day's close. More information: ICE · Brent Crude Futures ↗
Henry Hub
- Huracanes Katrina y Rita (sep 2005)
- Pico previo a la crisis financiera (jul 2008)
- Pandemia de COVID-19 (abr 2020)
- Corte del gas ruso a Europa (ago 2022)
- Tensión en el estrecho de Ormuz (abr 2026)
Máximo del período: 13,42 USD/MMBtu (oct 2005). Promedio mensual del precio spot en Henry Hub (EIA, vía FRED) desde 1997; los meses más recientes, con el futuro del primer mes.
Unit: USD per MMBtu (million BTU ≈ 27 m³ of natural gas)
Benchmark price for natural gas in the U.S. Henry Hub is a pipeline node in Erath, Louisiana, where contract gas is delivered.
It is the price basis for a large share of the LNG exported by the U.S.: many contracts are set as a percentage of Henry Hub plus a liquefaction fee.
It trades as a futures contract on NYMEX (CME Group). We show the front-month contract.
Source: NG futures quote (NYMEX) taken from Yahoo Finance, delayed by up to 15 minutes. The change is against the previous day's close. More information: CME Group · Henry Hub Natural Gas ↗
TTF — Title Transfer Facility
- Huracanes Katrina y Rita (sep 2005)
- Pico previo a la crisis financiera (jul 2008)
- Pandemia de COVID-19 (abr 2020)
- Corte del gas ruso a Europa (ago 2022)
- Tensión en el estrecho de Ormuz (abr 2026)
Máximo del período: 70,0 USD/MMBtu (ago 2022). Promedio mensual del precio del gas en Europa según el FMI (vía FRED), en USD/MMBtu, desde 1992. En los años recientes esa serie sigue al TTF; en los años 90 y 2000 reflejaba contratos de importación de largo plazo (ligados al petróleo). Los meses más recientes, con el futuro TTF pasado a USD/MMBtu.
Unit: USD per MMBtu (converted from EUR per MWh, the unit in which it is quoted)
Benchmark price for natural gas in Europe. The TTF is the Netherlands' virtual gas market, the most liquid on the continent.
It sets the price of LNG arriving in Europe, one of the possible destinations for Argentine LNG.
It trades as a futures contract on ICE Endex (Amsterdam), in euros per MWh. We show the front-month contract.
To compare it with Henry Hub and use it in project evaluation, we convert it to dollars per million BTU: price in EUR/MWh × EUR/USD exchange rate ÷ 3.412 (MMBtu in one MWh). The daily change is that of the TTF in euros, without the exchange-rate effect.
Source: Dutch TTF futures quote (ICE Endex) and EUR/USD exchange rate taken from Yahoo Finance, delayed by up to 15 minutes. The change is against the previous day's close. More information: ICE · Dutch TTF Natural Gas Futures ↗
CAMMESA* — wholesale electricity price
Máximo del período: 277,6 USD/MWh (jun 2022). Promedio mensual del costo marginal horario operado (Mercado) en USD/MWh, con el tipo de cambio quincenal de CAMMESA. Calculado por faufena con 1 de cada 3 días desde 2007; a diferencia del valor del inicio, este promedio no está ponderado por la demanda.
Unit: USD per MWh
CAMMESA (Compañía Administradora del Mercado Mayorista Eléctrico) dispatches the power plants of the Argentine system and publishes, hour by hour, the operated marginal cost: what it costs to produce the last MWh needed to meet demand in that hour.
That cost changes a lot over the day: in the early morning, with low demand, the cheapest plants are enough; in the afternoon more expensive units come on. Showing the latest hour would make the number go up and down all day.
* How we calculate it
We show the weighted price of the last 24 reported hours: for each hour we take the operated marginal cost and the energy delivered in that hour (nationwide demand), and compute the energy-weighted average:
price = Σ (hour's marginal cost × hour's MWh) ÷ Σ MWh
This way the hours with the most consumption weigh more, as happens on the real bill. The result is converted to dollars at the biweekly exchange rate published by CAMMESA. It is updated every hour, as CAMMESA reports.
- Período: de las 14:00 del 11/10 a las 14:00 del 12/10 (24 horas).
- En pesos: $ 45.087 por MWh · tipo de cambio CAMMESA: $ 1.519,25.
- Hora más barata: USD 15,2 (1:00 a 2:00 del 12/10) · hora más cara: USD 53,3 (19:00 a 20:00 del 11/10).
- Energía del período: 355.486 MWh.
It is a reference indicator prepared by faufena from public data: it is not a tariff or a contract price.
How energy is dispatched: the merit order
CAMMESA calls on the cheapest plants to generate first and then, as demand rises, the more expensive ones. The price for each hour is set by the last plant that had to be switched on: that is why the marginal cost changes so much between early morning and afternoon, and between summer and winter.
- Nuclear. Always generating: it is the base of the system and it is not advisable to ramp it up and down.
- Solar. Delivers everything it produces, but only during the day.
- Wind. Delivers everything it produces, when there is wind.
- Hydro. Run-of-river plants always generate; reservoir plants manage the water and save it for the hours or months when it is worth the most.
- Gas combined cycles. The most efficient thermal plants. Thermal units are always on: nuclear, renewables and hydro never cover 100 % of demand, not even in the early morning.
- Gas and steam turbines. Less efficient; they come on when demand grows.
- Small engines and turbines burning diesel or fuel oil (and gas imported as LNG). They are the last and the most expensive: they come on at peaks and in winter, when domestic gas is short. When they set the price, the marginal cost soars.
What generated the energy in the 1st half of 2026
- Thermal 56 % 41,863 GWh
- Hydro (> 50 MW) 18 % 13,300 GWh
- Wind 12 % 9,123 GWh
- Nuclear 6 % 4,450 GWh
- Solar 4 % 2,944 GWh
- Other renewables 2 % 1,394 GWh
- Imports 3 % 2,126 GWh
- Total supply: 75,196 GWh (+0.7 % versus the 1st half of 2025). Nuclear generated 15 % less (lower availability) and thermal made up for it (+2 %). Solar grew 35 % and wind 3 %, due to new capacity.
- Average operated marginal cost: USD 107.9/MWh (USD 62.3 in the 1st half of 2025), with May and June near USD 190-205. CAMMESA attributes it to less water and less domestic gas, more thermal generation on expensive fuels and high oil prices (Brent near USD 109).
- Fuels: domestic gas cost USD 3.8/MMBtu and imported gas USD 22.7/MMBtu; diesel consumption rose 40 % and coal 54 %.
- Spot market monomic price (large users): USD 99.2/MWh (+34 %).
Source: CAMMESA, Semiannual Summary, first half of 2026 (cammesaweb.cammesa.com › Informes y estadísticas).
Source: Public CAMMESA data: hourly operated marginal cost of the Market (pesos per MWh), system demand every 5 minutes and CAMMESA's biweekly exchange rate. More information: CAMMESA ↗
Active U.S. drilling rigs (Baker Hughes)
Every Friday Baker Hughes counts how many drilling rigs are working in the U.S. and Canada. It is the most closely followed leading indicator for shale: more rigs today means more production in 6 to 9 months, and the market reads it as a signal of where supply and price are heading. Be careful when comparing eras: today a rig drills longer wells in fewer days than ten years ago, so the same number of rigs yields much more oil.
Monthly average of Baker Hughes' weekly count, published by the EIA. We take the weekly figure from Trading Economics, which replicates Baker Hughes.
U.S. oil inventories (EIA)
Every Wednesday the EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration) publishes how much oil and fuel is in tanks across the country. It is the weekly figure that moves the price the most: if stocks fall more than expected, the market reads a supply shortage and the price rises, and vice versa. It is always compared against the average of the last 5 years for the same week, because stocks are seasonal (they rise in spring and fall in the northern summer, when more driving takes place). Cushing matters separately: if it empties, WTI gets more expensive relative to Brent. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) belongs to the government and is used in emergencies, as in 2022 with the war in Ukraine.
Últimas semanas
| Semana al | Commercial crude | Cambio | Cushing | SPR | Naftas | Destilados |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02/10/2026 | 424,1 | -3,2 | 24,7 | 283,0 | 204,7 | 105,1 |
| 25/09/2026 | 427,3 | +0,9 | 24,3 | 283,8 | 204,4 | 105,2 |
| 18/09/2026 | 426,4 | +3,0 | 23,7 | 284,6 | 206,0 | 107,4 |
| 11/09/2026 | 423,4 | -0,6 | 21,5 | 285,0 | 207,7 | 107,9 |
| 04/09/2026 | 424,1 | -0,4 | 21,8 | 285,4 | 206,9 | 106,3 |
| 28/08/2026 | 424,5 | -4,5 | 22,5 | 286,6 | 205,7 | 104,2 |
| 21/08/2026 | 428,9 | +0,1 | 22,4 | 289,7 | 206,8 | 103,4 |
| 14/08/2026 | 428,8 | +4,4 | 21,3 | 293,4 | 209,4 | 105,6 |
| 07/08/2026 | 424,4 | +17,4 | 22,6 | 298,7 | 208,7 | 107,1 |
| 31/07/2026 | 407,0 | +2,5 | 21,0 | 304,8 | 209,7 | 107,2 |
Millions of barrels. Source: EIA, Weekly Petroleum Status Report. Distillates = diesel and similar fuels.
OECD commercial stocks (EIA)
The commercial stock of crude and products in OECD countries (U.S., Europe, Japan, Korea, Canada, Australia and others) is the most widely used measure of the world market's "cushion." When it is below normal, any supply cut (such as a closure of Hormuz) hits the price harder. It is released with a one- to two-month lag and the EIA also publishes its forecast.
Source: EIA, Short-Term Energy Outlook (series PASC_OECD_T3). Months from Oct 2026 onward are forecast.
Other inventories published by other countries
With a crisis in the Gulf, in addition to the U.S. it is worth watching the stocks of the major trading hubs in Asia and Europe. These data have no stable free download to show here, but they are published as follows:
- Japan: Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ): weekly crude and product stocks. View ↗
- Singapore: Enterprise Singapore: weekly onshore product stocks (light, middle and fuel oil). It is Asia's thermometer. View ↗
- Fujairah (United Arab Emirates): Weekly stocks at the Port of Fujairah, outside the Strait of Hormuz; they are distributed through S&P Global Commodity Insights. Key for following a crisis in the Gulf.
- ARA (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp): Insights Global: weekly product stocks from Europe's main hub. View ↗
- European Union: Emergency reserves of each country, reported monthly to the European Commission (Eurostat). View ↗
- World: JODI (Joint Organisations Data Initiative): monthly production, consumption, trade and stocks for some 100 countries, free and downloadable. View ↗
- OECD: Monthly report from the IEA (Oil Market Report) and from OPEC (Monthly Oil Market Report): OECD stocks and days of cover. View ↗
- China: It does not publish inventories. What circulates are private estimates based on satellite images (they measure the shadow of the floating roofs of the tanks).
Sources for this page: EIA · Weekly Petroleum Status Report (U.S. inventories, Wednesdays) ↗ · Baker Hughes · Rig Count (active rigs, Fridays) ↗ · EIA · Short-Term Energy Outlook (OECD stocks and forecast, monthly) ↗ · Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas · Energy Survey (quarterly survey of oil companies) ↗. Data updated automatically on 12/10/2026.