Oil Price in Uruguay — Brent & WTI Crude Today

Uruguay has no significant oil production and imports all of its petroleum, though offshore exploration has drawn interest. Its small market tracks regional South American and Brent-linked product prices.

Classified here as a net importer, Uruguay trades against Brent and WTI. That is the pricing reference the sections below work from — the headline Brent number quoted at the top of this page is the global marker, not necessarily the price Uruguay settles at.

Uruguay produces no meaningful volume of crude, so every barrel consumed has to be bought at an internationally set price. That makes the Brent benchmark a direct input into the trade balance: a sustained move in crude shows up in the current account, in the currency, and eventually in domestic inflation.

South American grades are sold as differentials to whichever marker fits the destination — Brent for Europe and Asia, WTI for the US Gulf — so both benchmarks matter to the realised export price.

Uruguay has no significant refining capacity, so it imports finished fuel rather than crude. Its pump prices follow product cargo quotations — which include the exporting refiner's margin and the freight for the route — so local prices can rise even in weeks when Brent is falling, if refining margins or shipping rates are tightening.

Crude is invoiced in US dollars, so buyers in Uruguay face two prices at once: the Brent price and the UYU exchange rate. A weakening UYU raises the local cost of a barrel even when Brent is flat, which is why domestic fuel prices in currency-exposed markets often fail to fall when the benchmark does. The reference rate used in the estimates on this site is 41 UYU per USD.