Brent Crude Oil (BZ) delivery months at a glance — every contract's record over its tenure as the lead month.
Futures Seasonality · Contract-Month Study
Clean contract tenures 2010–2026, measured over each contract’s time as lead · Updated for 2026
Brent runs on its own clock. Each BZ contract expires roughly a month before its WTI counterpart, so every Brent contract leads about a month earlier than the same delivery month in CL. Line the two boards up by when they lead rather than what they are named, and the signals agree almost perfectly. Here is the record, contract by contract.
Most seasonality tables slice the calendar. This one slices the contracts. Each delivery month below is measured over its time as the lead contract: from the open of the day it takes over the front of the board to the close of the day it hands off the lead. No roll gaps, no splicing, one contract per observation. One honesty note specific to Brent: the contract’s early CME-era history contains roll irregularities, tenures that ran far too long or too short when volume data misfired. Those irregular tenures are excluded, leaving 11 to 14 clean observations per contract month instead of the full 16 available elsewhere. The counts shown are the cleaned record.
Brent (BZ) — Average Change by Contract Month
Average change while each contract leads the board. Hover any bar for the detail.
Each row is a delivery month: how many of its clean contracts since 2010 rose while leading, the average change over the tenure, and the average high-to-low range. “Typically leads” is the median window that contract runs the board, roughly a month ahead of the matching CL contract.
| Contract | Typically leads | Up / Down | Win rate | Avg change | Avg range |
|---|
Table view doubles as the accessible read of the chart above.
The March contract is Brent’s turn-of-year engine. Leading from late December through late January, the H contract has risen in 11 of 14 clean tenures (79%) with an average gain of 3.7%, and the April contract behind it keeps paying at 64% and +3.8%. This is the same turn-of-year rally that shows up in WTI’s February contract at 75%, two boards confirming one seasonal signal on their own clocks.
The January contract carries the autumn weakness. Leading from late October through late November, the F contract has risen just 4 of 12 times (33%) with an average loss of 3.8%, the worst combination on the Brent board. It occupies the same late-autumn window as WTI’s December contract, and both read the same way: that window has been where the barrel goes to leak.
The July contract is a warning about averages. It shows a positive 3.4% average change despite winning only 5 of 13 tenures, because its few up years were violent ones. A month can lose more often than it wins and still average green. That skew is exactly why this table shows the up-down count beside the average rather than either number alone.
A contract’s record tells you how its month has treated the lead position historically. It doesn’t tell you where the current lead contract sits today, whether this cycle is tracking the record or fighting it, or the levels that matter into the next session. That is what The Traders Brief does every morning, across energy, metals, and the indexes.
See today’s read →Which Brent contract month is historically strongest?
The March (H) contract, up 11 of 14 clean tenures (79%) with an average gain of 3.7% while leading through the turn of the year.
Which Brent contract month is weakest?
The January (F) contract, up just 4 of 12 (33%) averaging −3.8% while leading through late autumn.
Why does Brent lead a month earlier than WTI?
Brent contracts expire roughly a month before the matching WTI month, so each BZ contract takes and hands off the lead about a month ahead of its CL counterpart. To compare the two boards, match them by when they lead, not by their names.
Contract tendencies are drawn from 16 years of individual Brent Crude futures contract history (2010–2026), each measured over its own tenure as the lead contract, and describe the past. They are not a forecast and not trading advice. Markets can and do trade against their record in any given year. © 2026 The Traders Brief.