Oil prices fall to historic lows as West Texas futures drop
The price on the May futures contract for West Texas crude that is due to expire Tuesday fell into negative territory — minus $37.63 a barrel. That’s right, sellers were actually paying buyers to take the stuff off their hands. The reason: With the pandemic bringing the economy to a standstill, there is so much unused oil sloshing around that American energy companies are running out of room to store it. And if there’s no place to put the oil, no one wants a crude contract that is about to come due.
Underscoring just how acute the concern over the lack of storage is, the price on the futures contract due a month later settled at $20.43 per barrel. That gap between the two contracts is by far the biggest ever.
“The May crude oil contract is going out not with a whimper but a primal scream,” said Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning oil historian and vice chairman of IHS Markit Ltd.
“Refiners are rejecting barrels at a historic pace, and with U.S. storage levels sprinting to the brim, market forces will inflict further pain until either we hit rock bottom or COVID clears, whichever comes first, but it looks like the former,"
Underscoring just how acute the concern over the lack of storage is, the price on the futures contract due a month later settled at $20.43 per barrel. That gap between the two contracts is by far the biggest ever.
“The May crude oil contract is going out not with a whimper but a primal scream,” said Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning oil historian and vice chairman of IHS Markit Ltd.
“Refiners are rejecting barrels at a historic pace, and with U.S. storage levels sprinting to the brim, market forces will inflict further pain until either we hit rock bottom or COVID clears, whichever comes first, but it looks like the former,"
