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Brent is a benchmark used to compare crude prices; Urals and ESPO are physical Russian export grades. Their prices are not set by one permanent discount to Brent: the difference depends on the grade, pricing reference, port, date and costs or constraints involved in moving the oil.
Brent is a benchmark; Urals and ESPO are crude grades
Brent is a reference price, not another name for Russian crude. Urals and ESPO are blends with different physical characteristics. A price comparison therefore needs to identify both the Russian grade and the benchmark or reference price used for it.
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How Urals, ESPO and Brent differ
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) describes Urals as Russia’s major crude export: a medium-sour blend produced mainly in Western Siberia and the Volga-Urals region. Its grade table reports these ranges:
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|---|---|---|
| Urals | 30–32° API; 1.3–1.5% sulfur | Major Russian export blend, produced mainly in Western Siberia and the Volga-Urals region (EIA, Russia Country Analysis). |
| ESPO | 34–37° API; 0.4–0.6% sulfur | Produced in Eastern Siberia (EIA, Russia Country Analysis). |
| Brent | A matching numeric assay is not given in the cited EIA analysis. | Price benchmark used in comparisons, rather than a Russian export grade. |
On those reported measures, ESPO is lighter and lower in sulfur than Urals. The ranges are not a full assay for any particular cargo, and they do not establish a numeric, like-for-like Brent specification.
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Why Russian crude prices are compared with Brent
A quoted differential states how much a grade’s assessed price is above or below a named reference for a particular market observation. Urals has been reported against North Sea Dated, a Brent-related pricing reference. ESPO may instead be compared with Dubai-linked references used for Asian pricing. A quoted “discount to Brent” is meaningful only when the benchmark and pricing basis are specified; it should not be assumed that every Russian barrel trades at the same discount.
Port and delivery terms matter too. FOB (free on board) prices refer to oil loaded at the named export location; they are not the same as a buyer’s delivered or landed cost. Freight, insurance and shipping or buyer constraints can change the economics between the export price and the cost at destination.
Dated Russian crude price observations
The figures below illustrate why quotes need their dates and price bases. They are historical observations, not current October 2026 prices or interchangeable measures.
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|---|---|---|---|
| August 2025 | Urals FOB Primorsk, differential to North Sea Dated | −$12.48 per barrel | Monthly market observation reported by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its 11 September 2025 Oil Market Report. |
| August 2025 | Urals FOB Novorossiysk, differential to North Sea Dated | −$12.04 per barrel | Monthly market observation reported by the IEA in its 11 September 2025 Oil Market Report. |
| 24 December 2025 | Urals FOB Primorsk, versus Dated | −$26.45 per barrel | One-day assessment in Argus’s daily sheet for that date. |
| 24 December 2025 | ESPO FOB, versus February Dubai swaps | −$14.00 per barrel | One-day assessment in Argus’s daily sheet for that date; its Dubai-linked reference differs from the Urals comparison above. |
| December 2025 | Urals FOB Novorossiysk | $260.10 per tonne | Monthly average used in the Russian Ministry of Economic Development’s price calculation notice, based on Argus Rus Limited data. |
| December 2025 | Urals FOB Primorsk | $274.38 per tonne | Monthly average used in the Ministry’s notice, based on Argus Rus Limited data. |
| December 2025 | ESPO Blend | $352.24 per tonne | Monthly average used in the Ministry’s notice, based on Argus Rus Limited data. |
The per-tonne figures are official monthly price-calculation inputs for the stated grades and locations, not spot quotes or direct comparisons with Brent. They also use a different unit from the per-barrel differentials. The August monthly differentials and December one-day assessments should not be read as a continuous price series: their dates, assessment windows and, for ESPO, reference differ.
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What can widen or narrow the discount
In its September 2025 Oil Market Report, the IEA wrote: “Russian crude differentials softened as a result of secondary sanctions on key buyers and potential supply increases following drone attacks on refineries, although any real surplus has yet to materialise.” This describes the market conditions discussed in that report; it is not a permanent explanation or a current price assessment.
In practice, the discount is a market differential, not a fixed property of Russian crude. When assessing a quote, check the details that determine whether two prices are actually comparable:
- Grade: Urals and ESPO are different blends.
- Benchmark: confirm whether the comparison is to North Sea Dated, Dubai-linked pricing or another reference.
- Location and terms: note the named port and whether the price is FOB or delivered.
- Date and pricing window: distinguish a monthly average from a daily assessment and a cargo’s loading period.
- Costs and constraints: account for freight, insurance and any sanctions-related shipping or buyer limitations that affect the transaction.
Who buys Russian crude, and how routes matter
Buyer shares shift over time. EIA trade data put India at 34% of Russia’s crude exports in 2024, up from 30% in 2023. China accounted for 26% in 2024, down from 32% in 2023. These are shares for those calendar years, not a forecast of current purchases.
A later, period-specific analysis by the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), published in March 2026, said China, India and Türkiye together accounted for around 90% of Russian crude exports in the period it examined. It reported that China was the only one of the three not to reduce purchases between October 2025 and February 2026, while Indian imports fell sharply. That later pattern should not be substituted for the EIA’s 2024 shares or treated as a permanent ranking.
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Routes help explain why grades and destinations can be connected. EIA describes the ESPO pipeline as linking to Chinese pipelines at Mohe, while its main branch continues to Kozmino on Russia’s Pacific coast. An Argus sample report from February 2025 described China as the main destination for ESPO Blend and noted that tanker availability from Kozmino affected freight to China. The same early-2025 report discussed Indian refinery purchases and alternatives including Middle Eastern sour crudes, West African crudes and North American crudes. Those details illustrate how transport capacity and buyers’ other supply options can affect realized economics; they are not a current cargo-flow report.
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