Brent crude oil was priced at $115.41 per barrel at 8:15 a.m. Eastern Time on October 26, 2026, according to a daily price update published by Yahoo Finance and originally featured on Fortune.com. The price was 23 cents lower than the same time the previous day and roughly $49.50 higher than a year earlier.
The update reports a previous-day price of $115.64 per barrel, a decline of 0.19%. One month earlier, Brent stood at $101.86, meaning the current level represents a rise of 13.30% over that period. Compared with one year ago, when the benchmark was $65.93 per barrel, the price is up 75.04%.
Brent is the main global oil benchmark because it prices much of the world's traded crude, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration now uses it as its primary reference in its Annual Energy Outlook, according to the Fortune report. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) serves as the main benchmark for North America.
The source also notes that the relationship between crude and consumer fuel prices is significant: crude typically accounts for more than half of the price per gallon at the pump, and gasoline prices tend to rise quickly when crude spikes but fall more slowly when crude declines, a pattern the article describes as 'rockets and feathers'. The article stresses that future price movements cannot be predicted with precision. Prices are ultimately driven by supply and demand, but threats of economic downturn, war and other shocks can cause the trajectory of oil prices to change rapidly.
Oil and natural gas are also linked, since a sharp move in oil prices can push some industries to switch to natural gas where possible, increasing gas demand. Historical data cited in the source show how volatile the market has been, including the 1973 Arab oil embargo during the Yom Kippur War, price declines in the mid-1980s, a spike in 2008 followed by a collapse during the global financial crisis, and a drop below $20 per barrel during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns. Fortune's related coverage, published in the days before this update, carries headlines referring to energy markets adapting to the Iran war and to Saudi Arabia's plans to move 10 million barrels of oil a day around the Strait of Hormuz.
Source: Yahoo Finance, 'Current price of oil as of October 26, 2026', https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/current-price-oil-october-26-123000108.html. Original report: Fortune.com, https://fortune.com/article/price-of-oil-10-26-2026/
Source: finance.yahoo.com