West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was launched as an oil commodity futures index for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in 1986, based on spot prices for intermediate grade crude (~39.6 API) at Cushing, Oklahoma. Cushing is a major hub for the transportation of crude oil, with dozens of major pipelines and approximately 85 million barrels of crude oil storage capacity. The WTI has $80.7 billion of outstanding futures contracts as of 3/10/2015.