http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/22/businesspro-us-ice-traders-analysis-idUSTRE75L6CW20110622 The speculators' crude is getting cheaper Vs the evil hedgers and producers one...
The limited and distorted fungibility aspect of each contract makes them essentially a de facto spec vehicle. Securing Brent North Sea offloading or WTI rack space at Cushing appears to require a sprinkling of pixie dust from a leprechaun.
Discussion about who is the benchmark will continue as the spread widens, besides that discussion seems pointless. It's amazing how the CL fail to recover yesterday afternoon even with brent and other markets recovering (such as equities, gold, silver). here is a chart with the comparison I just uploaded. http://chart.ly/waosejg