Oil Trading Hours 2026: WTI and Brent in GMT and Gulf Time

Oil futures trade almost around the clock on weekdays. WTI on CME Globex runs from Sunday 17:00 to Friday 16:00 Chicago time with a one-hour pause each afternoon, and Brent on ICE Futures Europe runs from 01:00 to 23:00 London time, opening on Sunday at 23:00. The tables below convert both to GMT and Gulf time.

How those hours compare with the currency sessions is covered in forex market trading hours, and what separates the two crudes as instruments in the difference between Brent and WTI crude. Oil sits inside the wider commodity complex, and our guide to commodity trading covers how those markets are reached and priced.

WTI and Brent: Two Venues, Two Clocks

The two crude benchmarks are set on two different exchanges, and each exchange publishes its hours in its own local time. Converting them correctly starts with knowing which clock each one uses.

Hours as published by CME Group and ICE Futures Europe, checked 23 September 2026. Each is in the exchange’s own local time.

The NYMEX rulebook itself leaves the schedule to the exchange, so the hours above come from CME Group’s published Globex schedule rather than from the contract rules. Both exchanges state that their times are subject to change around holidays.

Oil Trading Hours in GMT, Cairo, Riyadh and Dubai Time

Riyadh stays on UTC+3 all year and Dubai on UTC+4, so neither moves. Chicago, London and Cairo all move their clocks, and that is why the same exchange hour lands at a different local time in summer and in winter.

Summer: 24 April to 24 October 2026

Chicago, London and Cairo are all on summer time in this stretch.

Computed from each exchange's local hours using the IANA Time Zone Database (release 2026c). The WTI pause runs Monday to Thursday; the Brent pause runs every weekday night.

Winter: 1 November 2026 to 7 March 2027

All three are back on standard time in this stretch.

Same method. Note that Cairo times for the WTI open and pause do not change between the two seasons, because Cairo and Chicago move their clocks in the same direction.

The Weeks the Clocks Disagree

The US, the UK and Egypt do not change their clocks on the same dates, and for the weeks in between the two tables above are each wrong by an hour somewhere.

Two stretches matter most. From 8 to 28 March, and again from 25 to 31 October, Chicago is on summer time while London is not. In those weeks WTI reopens on Sunday at 22:00 GMT but Brent at 23:00 GMT, so the two benchmarks do not restart together as they do for the rest of the year.

Cairo adds a third layer. Between 29 March and 23 April, and from 30 to 31 October, Cairo is on UTC+2 while London and Chicago are on summer time, so every Cairo time in the summer table is one hour earlier in those weeks.

The Wednesday Inventory Release

The US Energy Information Administration publishes its Weekly Petroleum Status Report after 10:30 a.m. New York time on Wednesday. That is 14:30 GMT while New York is on daylight time and 15:30 GMT in winter.

In local time it lands at 17:30 in Riyadh and 18:30 in Dubai during the summer, and an hour later in both once New York returns to standard time. Cairo is the exception: because Cairo and New York move their clocks in the same direction, the release stays at 17:30 Cairo time in both seasons, except in the March and October weeks listed above.

For some weeks that contain a US holiday the EIA moves the release back by a day. After Labor Day on 7 September 2026, for example, the report came out on Thursday 10 September. The EIA publishes these exceptions in advance on its release schedule, and the mechanics of what the report contains are in the weekly inventory release.

When to Trade Oil: What the Schedule Fixes

No exchange publishes a best hour to trade oil, and any fixed answer depends on a strategy the reader has not stated. What the published schedule does settle is the following.

• One benchmark is always open on weekdays. In summer WTI pauses from 21:00 to 22:00 GMT while Brent is still trading, and Brent pauses from 22:00 to 00:00 GMT while WTI is trading again. In winter the same pattern runs an hour later.
• Both benchmarks trade together for most of the day. Outside those pause hours, from the Sunday open to the Friday close, both venues are open at the same time.
• The Brent settlement price is fixed in a two-minute window. ICE takes the weighted average of trades from 19:28 to 19:30 London time, which is 21:28 in Riyadh in summer and 22:28 in winter.
• The EIA release is the one scheduled weekly event for crude, at the times given in the section above.

A reader choosing between the two benchmarks by time of day can therefore read it straight off the tables: an evening in the Gulf falls inside both sessions, while the hours from about midnight to 04:00 Riyadh time contain one of the two pauses.

Weekends and US Holidays

Oil futures do not trade at the weekend. WTI closes at 16:00 Chicago time on Friday and Brent one hour later in GMT terms, at 23:00 London time, and both reopen on Sunday evening.

US holidays change the CME schedule rather than simply closing it. CME Group lists holiday schedules for Thanksgiving from 26 to 28 November 2026, Christmas from 24 to 26 December 2026, and New Year from 31 December 2026 to 1 January 2027, and says the exact times are usually finalised about two weeks before each holiday.

A broker’s oil CFD can differ from both exchanges, because each broker sets and publishes its own hours. Where a broker offers the dated contract rather than the cash one, the hours are only half the question and the expiring contract is the other half. Which way the cash adjustment runs at that expiry depends on whether the market is in contango or in backwardation.

Who This Page Is Not For

A reader who holds positions for weeks has little use for hour-by-hour conversion. For that horizon the rollover of the underlying contract and the financing charge matter far more than the minute a session opens, and the pages linked above cover both.

It is also not a guide to a particular broker’s CFD hours. Brokers can quote oil on a schedule that differs from both exchanges, including around holidays, and only the broker’s own contract specification answers that question for a specific account.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources checked 23 September 2026: CME Group, Holiday and Trading Hours, for CME Globex times stated in US Central Time, the NYMEX and COMEX weekly window and the 2026 US holiday schedules; CME Group, Light Sweet Crude Oil futures contract page, for the Globex session and its daily 60-minute break. NYMEX Rulebook Chapter 200, Light Sweet Crude Oil Futures, for trading hours being set by the Exchange. ICE Futures Europe, Brent Crude Futures contract specification, for the London trading hours, the Sunday open and the daily settlement window. US Energy Information Administration, Weekly Petroleum Status Report and its release schedule, for the Wednesday 10:30 a.m. Eastern release and holiday-week delays. IANA Time Zone Database release 2026c, for the 2026 clock changes in Chicago, New York, London, Cairo, Riyadh and Dubai.

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