This is a hard question to formulate. Where is the oil in its production chain that corresponds to the quotes we see online?
Are oil quotes the price of the oil coming out of the wellhead? Is it the price of the oil coming out of a particular field? Is it the price of the oil at some tank farm? Is it after oil gets segregated by grade?
Oil is fungible so the where part doesn't really matter with respect to Wyoming or Texas. But then again, maybe it does. There are sure to be slight differences in price between geographic locations.
The oil obviously doesn't go to Chicago behind some trader's desk in the pit.
Lots of links online about oil quotes but I couldn't find details like this.
It seems to me that each stage adds some value and some expense to oil.
Hopefully you see what I'm getting at when I ask, where is the oil quoted?
I'm in the tanker space. It seems to me that the oil will certainly be priced before it goes into a tanker.