OilPriceAPI MCP Server

Give compatible AI clients source-timestamped oil, gas, LNG, carbon, fuel, and related energy data through MCP. No API key is needed to try the limited demo.

Get a Free API Key · Documentation · API Explorer · Pricing

Backed by OilPriceAPI, a normalized REST API for energy dashboards, fleet and logistics tools, maritime workflows, and market research.

Canonical sources: Public product facts · Official MCP Registry record

Features

• Reviewed product facts — a keyless read-only tool and stable resource for offer, freshness, authentication, catalog, entitlement, and data-rights questions
• Data and workflow tools — latest values, history, futures, marine fuels, fuel surcharges, energy intelligence, alerts, market briefs, and persistent watches
• Resources — the reviewed product contract plus subscribable price snapshots
• Prompts — analyst templates for briefings, spread analysis, gas markets, diesel costs, and supply analysis
• Natural language — ask for "brent oil" or "natural gas", not codes
• Broad catalog — oil, gas, coal, refined products, metals, forex, bunker fuels, state diesel, and selected energy-intelligence datasets; access varies by plan and account
• Smart errors — unrecognized commodities get suggestions, not silent fallbacks

Quick Start

npx oilpriceapi-mcp

The default scope is read-only. Account mutations are not listed and direct mutation calls are rejected unless write scope is explicitly enabled:

npx oilpriceapi-mcp --scope write

Inspect the package without opening an MCP stdio session:

npx oilpriceapi-mcp --version
npx oilpriceapi-mcp --list-tools
npx oilpriceapi-mcp --list-tools --json --profile core
npx oilpriceapi-mcp doctor --demo
npx oilpriceapi-mcp doctor
npx oilpriceapi-mcp --capabilities --json
npx oilpriceapi-mcp --config claude-code
npx oilpriceapi-mcp --config vscode

--config generates client-native, copy/paste-valid JSON for claude-desktop, claude-code, cursor, vscode, cline, or windsurf. It never reads or prints the configured API key. Claude Code, VS Code, and Windsurf outputs use their supported environment or secure-input references; Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Cline use an explicit local replacement marker. Add --demo to omit API-key configuration entirely. Scope, profile, and category options are preserved in the generated server arguments.

What can your agent get?

Example commodity codes:

Installation

Try it without an API key

The server works out of the box in keyless demo mode — just omit OILPRICEAPI_KEY from the configs below. The price tools (opa_get_price, opa_compare_prices, opa_list_commodities, opa_market_overview) serve latest available values for a limited demo commodity set, and every other data tool explains its account requirements. Demo responses are marked with a footer. For the broader account-enabled catalog, history, futures, and alerts, get a free API key and add it to your config.

Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "oilpriceapi": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "oilpriceapi-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "OILPRICEAPI_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

Add to your project's .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "oilpriceapi": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "oilpriceapi-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "OILPRICEAPI_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add to .cursor/mcp.json in your project root:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "oilpriceapi": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "oilpriceapi-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "OILPRICEAPI_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code + Cline

Add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "oilpriceapi": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "oilpriceapi-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "OILPRICEAPI_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

Add to ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "oilpriceapi": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "oilpriceapi-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "OILPRICEAPI_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Global Install

npm install -g oilpriceapi-mcp

Build the Container

Container builds require the source revision and commit timestamp so the image, capability manifest, and build metadata are traceable to the same checkout:

docker build \
  --build-arg SOURCE_COMMIT="$(git rev-parse HEAD)" \
  --build-arg SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH="$(git show -s --format=%ct HEAD)" \
  -t oilpriceapi-mcp .
docker run --rm oilpriceapi-mcp --version
docker run --rm oilpriceapi-mcp --capabilities --json

The runtime image uses the unprivileged node user. Omit OILPRICEAPI_KEY for the limited keyless demo, or inject it with your container platform's secret manager. Do not bake credentials into the image.

Transport

This server runs locally over stdio only. Its MCP Registry record lists the npm package and no remote endpoint.

The hosted connector at https://mcp.oilpriceapi.com/mcp is not this server. It is a separate, smaller set of energy_* tools with OAuth account linking, used by hosted clients that cannot launch a local process. Use this package for the full opa_* tool set.

Environment Variables

Tool Scope and Profiles

read scope includes all non-mutating tools, including alert history, subscription listing, and subscription event polling. The four create/delete tools require --scope write or OILPRICEAPI_MCP_SCOPE=write. Unknown scope, profile, or category values fail closed before stdio starts.

Profiles reduce tool overload without replacing first-class MCP actions:

For example, a read-only price and product-facts server can use:

{
  "command": "npx",
  "args": ["-y", "oilpriceapi-mcp", "--scope", "read", "--profile", "core"]
}

Doctor and Capability Contract

doctor checks the Node runtime, package entry point, API reachability, key validity, current plan, and reported feature gates. doctor --demo performs a bounded keyless request. Failures distinguish missing configuration, 401, 402, 403, 429, timeout, DNS/TLS, and upstream 5xx responses. The API key is never printed.

Every package includes build/capabilities.json. It is generated from the same SDK registry used by tools/list and records the package/version/source commit, minimum Node version, scopes, profiles, exact inventories, per-tool annotations, key/entitlement requirements, resources, commands, and support URLs. Website and docs consumers should pin a package version, validate schemaVersion and sourceCommit, and update the artifact only through an explicit dependency upgrade. They should not scrape CLI prose or hard-code tool counts.

API-to-MCP capability ledger

capability-ledger.json records an explicit decision for every operation in the published OilPriceAPI contract (https://api.oilpriceapi.com/openapi.json). Each operation is either exposed, naming the registered tool(s), or not_exposed with a disposition (selected, deferred, alias, unsupported, internal) and a one-line reason. Families group operations into workflows, including preview API families the server calls that are not in the canonical contract yet.

npm run build && npm run check:capability-ledger compares the ledger with the live contract, build/capabilities.json and the REST paths src/index.ts calls. It exits 1 on drift, such as a new API operation with no decision, a removed one, or an unrecorded tool or path. It exits 2 when it cannot check: the contract is unreachable, the build manifest is missing, or the route-policy snapshot is older than its stated threshold. CI runs it on every pull request and daily. When a decision changes, bump ledgerVersion, append to changes, and link that change from the release notes.

Tools

All tools are prefixed with opa_ to avoid name collisions when multiple MCP servers are loaded.

Price Alert Tools (authenticated)

These tools create and manage persistent price alerts tied to your OilPriceAPI account, so they require an API key (OILPRICEAPI_KEY). The alert engine evaluates eligible source updates and notifies you (by email, plus webhook if you provide one) when a condition is met.

Market Brief & Subscription Tools (authenticated)

The market brief gives a multi-commodity snapshot in one call. Subscriptions ("watches") are persistent, recurring snapshots tied to your account — the API records an event every interval, and the agent polls for new events via a per-user cursor (events are polled, not pushed — there is no always-on connection). These require an API key (OILPRICEAPI_KEY). A subscription differs from an alert: a watch always emits an event each interval (a running log), whereas an alert fires only on a threshold crossing. Per-account code, watch, and cadence limits apply; the API response is authoritative and returns the current limit when exceeded.

Example Questions

"What's the current Brent oil price?"
"Compare Brent and WTI crude"
"Show me oil prices for the past month"
"What's diesel cost in California vs Texas?"
"Give me a market overview of refined products"
"What's the Brent futures curve look like?"
"How many rigs are active in the US?"
"What are OPEC production levels?"
"What are bunker fuel prices in Singapore?"
"Show me Cushing storage levels"
"What were the latest EIA crude oil inventories?"
"How many well permits were issued in Texas?"
"What's the current 3-2-1 crack spread?"
"What's the UPS ground fuel surcharge?"
"Show me the gasoil futures curve"

Resources

Subscribable price data (JSON):

Product Facts and Model Knowledge

opa_get_product_facts and oilpriceapi://product-facts improve accuracy for a connected MCP session. They do not retrain a model or update its general knowledge. The server prefers the canonical keyless contract, uses a bounded cache, and labels any checksum-verified package fallback with source and warning metadata.

Prompts

Pre-built analyst templates:

Natural Language Support

Development

npm install
npm run build
npm test
OILPRICEAPI_KEY=your-key node build/index.js

Breaking Changes in v3.0.0

• The default tool scope is now read-only. Create/delete alert and subscription tools require explicit --scope write or OILPRICEAPI_MCP_SCOPE=write.
• Invalid scope/profile/category configuration now fails before MCP stdio starts.
• Use --list-tools --json or --capabilities --json instead of relying on a hard-coded inventory.

Breaking Changes in v2.0.0

• All tool names now use opa_ prefix (e.g., get_commodity_price -> opa_get_price)
• Unrecognized commodity names now return an error with suggestions instead of silently defaulting to Brent
• list_commodities now fetches live from the API (falls back to static list if unavailable)

The whole OilPriceAPI toolbox

Same data, every stack:

Explore the API

• 🧭 Interactive explorer: api.oilpriceapi.com/swagger — try every endpoint in the browser (demo mode, no key needed)
• 📜 OpenAPI spec: swagger.json

Privacy Policy

This MCP server runs locally on your machine and only communicates with the OilPriceAPI service:

• What is sent: tool requests are translated into HTTPS calls to api.oilpriceapi.com (commodity codes, query parameters such as time period or state, carrier slugs and service-level inputs for fuel surcharges, and — for alert/subscription tools — the alert parameters you specify), authenticated with your API key. No conversation content is transmitted — only the structured tool inputs above.
• API key storage: your key is stored locally in your MCP client's configuration (or the OILPRICEAPI_KEY environment variable). It is sent only to api.oilpriceapi.com as an Authorization header.
• Logging and demand telemetry: each tool emits a local structured hit/miss event to stderr and attributes its API request with the tool name plus a deliberately lossy argument shape. Commodity codes, intervals, state codes, and bounded numeric controls may be retained; free text, prompts, names, IDs, API well numbers, coordinates, and thresholds are reduced to provided. API request logging follows the OilPriceAPI Privacy Policy.
• Third parties: no data is shared with third parties beyond what that policy describes.
• Demo mode: without an API key, price tools call the keyless demo endpoint on the same host; no key or account data is involved.

Questions: support@oilpriceapi.com

Pricing Boundary (HTTP 402)

Where the free/paid line sits for this server (#10):

• Always open: the MCP server itself (MIT), setup, docs, discovery (tool listing), and keyless demo mode for low-volume evaluation.
• API key: use the public product facts and your account response for the current trial, allowance, reset window, and dataset entitlement. Keyless demo mode remains available for a limited dataset.
• Behind the paywall: high-volume usage and premium datasets (futures, energy intelligence, well permits/production, alerts at scale). When a request crosses that boundary the API returns a standard HTTP 402/403/429 with the exact limit or feature gate in the body, and this server surfaces that message plus an upgrade link — agents get a machine-readable stop, never a silent failure.
• x402 protocol: per-request crypto micropayments via the x402 protocol are not currently supported — payment is by account plan (Stripe), authenticated with your API key.

License

MIT

Links

• OilPriceAPI
• API Documentation
• Pricing
• MCP Protocol

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