Energy Price Grounding Data

Overview

A scheduled collector reads twelve daily spot price series from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's open data API twice a day and stores every close since 1986 (the series start at different dates; Henry Hub begins in 1997, ultra-low sulfur diesel in 2006). Requests are served from that store, never from EIA live. The data is public domain; source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Spot Prices for Crude Oil and Petroleum Products and Natural Gas Spot and Futures Prices.

`price` is the close on `date` and `previousClose` the close on the trading day before it; `change` is the difference and `changePercent` the same as a percent of the previous close. `high52w` and `low52w` are the highest and lowest closes in the 364 days up to `date`. EIA publishes closing assessments a few days after the trading day, so `date` usually trails today by two to five days. These are spot prices, not futures settlements or live quotes.

Crude is published per barrel, refined products and propane per gallon and natural gas per MMBtu. `unit` converts with 42 gallons per barrel, 3.785411784 liters per gallon, 10 therms per MMBtu and 3.412141633 MMBtu per MWh. `history` returns closes from `days - 1` calendar days before `date` through `date`; `weekly` keeps the last close of each Monday-to-Sunday week.

Live Test Energy Price Grounding Data Source →

The tool

Once your client is connected to the VerveContext server, this appears in its tool list as EnergyPriceGroundingData. It is read-only and open-world — it fetches and never mutates anything on your side — so most clients call it without asking you to confirm.

{
  "name": "EnergyPriceGroundingData",
  "arguments": {}
}

Connecting

One server URL covers every source in the catalog, including this one. Authorization is OAuth: the client opens a browser once, and there is no key to paste into a config file.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vervecontext": {
      "url": "https://api.vervecontext.com/v1/mcp"
    }
  }
}

https://api.vervecontext.com/v1/mcp

Per-client setup — Claude, Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT — is on the MCP setup page.

Arguments

These are the properties on the tool's inputSchema, so a well-behaved client validates them before the call is made. Premium arguments are accepted on every plan but only take effect on plans that include them.

What the model gets back

The result carries a structuredContent object matching the tool's declared outputSchema, so a client reads fields without parsing prose. status is "ok" and error is null on success; a null field means the value was not available for that input, not that the call failed.

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{
  "status": "ok",
  "error": null,
  "data": {
    "count": 1,
    "date": "2026-11-11",
    "prices": [
      {
        "benchmark": "wti",
        "name": "WTI Crude Oil",
        "product": "crude oil",
        "location": "Cushing, OK",
        "currency": "USD",
        "unit": "barrel",
        "nativeUnit": "barrel",
        "price": 89.62,
        "date": "2026-11-11",
        "previousClose": 89.62,
        "previousDate": "2026-11-10",
        "change": 0,
        "changePercent": 0,
        "changeDirection": "unchanged",
        "high52w": 114.58,
        "high52wDate": "2026-04-07",
        "low52w": 55.44,
        "low52wDate": "2025-12-16"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Response fields

Paths are relative to data. Premium fields are absent rather than zeroed on plans that do not include them, so check for presence instead of comparing to 0.

Why ground on it

A model can produce something that looks like this answer from its training data, and be confidently out of date or simply wrong. This source returns the current value in a shape you can check, which is the difference between an answer you can cite and one you have to hedge.

Point an evaluation at count: it is the field most worth pinning a claim to, and it is either present and current or absent — never plausibly invented.

Failure modes

Errors come back as tool errors carrying a sentence the model can act on, not a bare status code. Error handling covers the full list.

A call costs 2 credits each time the tool actually runs; a model that reasons about the tool without calling it costs nothing.

Use cases

Fuel Surcharge Calculators

Freight and airline tools tie surcharges to the daily diesel or jet fuel spot close and its weekly average, recalculated automatically as the benchmark moves.

Energy Cost Dashboards

Finance teams chart WTI, Brent and Henry Hub side by side in one call, with daily change and 52-week range for context.

Utility and Heating Estimates

Home energy apps convert Henry Hub gas to therms and heating oil to gallons to estimate the wholesale cost behind a household bill.

Backtests and Research

Analysts pull years of weekly closes for crude and products to study crack spreads, seasonality and price shocks.

Other ways to use Energy Price Grounding Data

Set up Energy Price Grounding Data on VerveContext, or reach the same source a different way. Your VerveContext account and credits work on all of them — one key, one balance.

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