In April 2020, the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil, which is the benchmark for US oil prices, briefly turned negative for the first time in history. This meant sellers were paying buyers to take the oil off their hands.
The main reason for this unprecedented situation was the sharp drop in demand for oil due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As countries around the world implemented lockdowns and travel restrictions to slow the spread of the virus, oil demand plummeted. At the same time, oil production continued at high levels, there was a huge oversupply of oil, and storage facilities were rapidly filling up. This led to a surplus of oil on the market. Even oil tankers were used for oil storage. With nowhere to store the excess oil, some traders were willing to pay buyers to take the oil off their hands, which resulted in negative prices.
Additionally, Saudi Arabia and Russia were engaged in a price war, with both countries refusing to cut production despite the drop in demand. This led to an oversupply of oil on the market, exacerbating the negative price situation.
The negative oil prices resulted from a technical issue in the oil futures market. Oil futures contracts are agreements to buy or sell oil at a future date and trade on exchanges. When a futures contract is close to expiration, traders who hold the contract must either take physical delivery of the oil or roll the contract over to a later date. However, with storage facilities filling up, there was a shortage of buyers who were willing to take delivery of the oil, which drove the prices negative.
Futures prices can theoretically be negative because they represent the market’s expectation of the future price of a commodity or financial instrument. If the market believes that the price of a commodity or financial instrument will be negative at some point in the future, then the future price may reflect that expectation. While futures prices can be negative, it is not common and typically reflects an unusual set of circumstances, which is what happened in April 2020.
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