TOPLINE
The price of one American oil futures contract plunged Monday into the negative for the first time in history, revealing just how badly an alreadyfragile market has been hit by the coronavirus crisis; as demand hits rockbottom and storage tanks fill up, companies are now paying traders to take oil off their hands.
KEY FACTS
Tuesday is the last day of trading for the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures contract (widely used as a benchmark for U.S. oil prices) for May—all the oil traded under this contract is set to be physically delivered next month, while the country is still on lockdown and demand for fuel is still at rock-bottom. As global demand for crude oil (which is used to make gasoline and jet fuel) has plummeted, the United States has seen its oil storage capacity fill up because airlines and other buyers aren’t using nearly as much crude as they were before the crisis.
With storage at capacity, those firms with the ability to store oil (like refineries and airlines) aren’t buying it anymore. As sellers scrambled to dump May contracts, futures prices nosedived and plunged below zero for the first time. Those prices—at negative $4.47 per barrel—mean that companies must now pay a buyer to take oil off their hands and store it if they want to exit the market. The June WTI contract, which will be the most current contract as of tomorrow, is where most of the trading volume is, making it a much more accurate measure of prices.
That’s also beginning to slide, though not nearly as dramatically as May’s contract; it’s down about 30% to $14.60 per barrel.
TANGENT
International oil hasn’t been hit nearly as hard as its American counterpart. The June contract for Brent crude, the benchmark for global oil prices, is down about 23% to $19.67 per barrel. The reason for the difference between the two benchmarks boils down to storage, CNBC reports. Brent crude is priced in the middle of the North Sea, where tanker storage is ample and accessible, while WTI oil storage in the U.S. is limited as well as landlocked. As a result, Brent is more removed from the coronavirus demand shock while WTI prices are much more sensitive to that shock.
BIG NUMBERS
WTI oil is down more than 100% this year. Brent oil has fallen about 65%.
KEY BACKGROUND
Last week, Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed to record oil production cuts following a weeks-long price war that devastated the oil market amid a major demand slump caused by the coronavirus. It’s not likely, however, that the agreement will be enough to stabilize the U.S. market. “There is no feasible agreement that could cut supply by enough to offset such near-term demand losses,” the International Energy Agency warned last week. The agency expects that plunging prices and swelling inventories will force U.S. producers to reduce production significantly this year; this December, it expects output to be 2 million barrels per day lower than in December 2019.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
The outlook improves considerably for WTI futures contacts for later months: the March 2021 contract, for instance, is still trading at about $32 per barrel.
As published by cdn.ymaws.com – Sarah Hansen Forbes Staff Markets I cover breaking news – Photo by Life Of Pix from Pexels