Geez need to stop being so wordy

dont worry you would get bailed out

the oil futures are people gambling on the price of oil going up or down by a certain date,they buy the oil but dont really want it so today they had to get rid of it.

Really gutted a filled up b4 lock down, 55L@£1.18

This crash only relates to WTI Crude Oil futures contracts due for delivery in May. Whoever is the holder of the contract tomorrow has to take delivery of the oil (in theory). It doesn't relate to any other oil anywhere else or a futures contract for delivery any other time, that's why the June price and other oil prices are different. WTI isn't used over this side of the world, only America really. We use North Sea Brent Crude over here.

The oil producer won't be paying the holder $37 to take the oil. The oil producer was paid based on the market price the date the contract was agreed. The buyer under the contract will be the one paying you $37 to take delivery on his behalf by taking ownership of the contract from him. The US storage facility is full and normally you'd offload these contracts to a refinery at a fair price but demand is down so refineries don't want any and there is thus a premium on storage and the $37 is compensation for that. Supply is up, demand is way down since the virus and now storage is down/full too. It should have a negative effect on the oil price generally as it's near capacity elsewhere in the world too and demand doesn't look like it will increase too much in the next few months anywhere. You could also look at it as a massive glut in supply effectively.

The US as a nation might be the one best positioned here. Shale oil production can be switched off and restarted more readily than conventional production.

Sure, the US firms currently producing the shale oil will go bust, and US banks will lose money, but that's capitalism for you. Newcomers will move in the moment oil prices rise again.

If oil prices don't rise again, then all well and good. The US gets cheap oil from the rest of the world, while retaining its own reserves. What the US always does with natural resources.

(Bloomberg) -- Oil is trading below $0 a barrel across the U.S. after the futures market suffered its worst price crash in history.

Barrels from the country’s biggest shale plays are pricing in negative territory, with buyers such as Enterprise Products Partners LP asking to be paid for taking crude in the Permian Basin. Enterprise offered negative prices for all grades, including minus $43.68 a barrel for West Texas Sour.

The meltdown follows the worst day of trading in U.S. history, in which New York oil futures plummeted more than 300% to close at an unprecedented negative $37.63 a barrel. The market was already under pressure as storage across the country fills and the coronavirus pandemic obliterates energy demand.

Bakken crude from North Dakota was worth minus $37.63 a barrel, equivalent to the futures price, according to data compiled by Bloomberg at 3:19 p.m. in New York. That was higher than Alaska North Slope at minus $46.63. Not every grade suffered as badly. On the Gulf Coast, Light Louisiana Sweet was worth $5.73 a barrel, a whopping $41 premium to futures.

Bakken oil producers, landlocked and dependent on pipelines or rail to move their crude to market, are especially vulnerable to the supply glut. With refineries in the U.S. Midwest cutting back production as people stay home and isolate, storage tanks are rapidly filling up.

The biggest U.S. storage hub at Cushing, Oklahoma -- the delivery point of the WTI contract -- has limited room after the volume of oil there jumped 48% to almost 55 million barrels since the end of February.

Prior to Monday’s crash, some lesser known crude streams had already sold at negative prices. Late last month, Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. bid negative 47 cents a barrel for Wyoming Asphalt Sour.

(Bloomberg) -- Oil’s collapse is deepening.

Just a day after U.S. crude futures for May delivery plunged below zero for the first time ever, June futures plummeted 43% to close below $12 a barrel in New York. A massive supply glut brought on by the pandemic and a worldwide shortage of storage space have touched off a relentless rout that has shifted the entire forward curve for oil.

The meltdown spreading across global oil markets has already wiped out tens of thousands of jobs and frozen billions of dollars in capital spending. Its deflationary effect threatens to further cripple economies around the world already reeling from coronavirus-fueled lockdowns. Storage tanks, pipelines and tankers have become overwhelmed by a vast oversupply brought on by an unprecedented plunge in global fuel demand.

Oil is a “dangerous market to trade in right now,” said Pierre Andurand, founder of Andurand Capital Management LLP, in a Bloomberg TV interview. The market needs oil production to fall immediately for prices to recover, he said.

The price crash spilled into the ETF market, with the biggest crude-tracking fund, the United States Oil Fund LP, moving some of its WTI contracts into later months, according to a regulatory filing. The spread between June and July U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rallied more than $1 a barrel on the move.

Oil ministers from the OPEC+ coalition held an unscheduled conference call on Tuesday to discuss the collapse without settling on new policy measures. The Texas Railroad Commission, meanwhile, opted to put off a decision on whether to impose oil-production quotas.

In London, the immediate contract for Brent crude was at the biggest discount to the following month in data since 2008. U.S. marker WTI’s June contract was halted three times early in New York to manage the volatility.

“If you start to look at the actual supply-demand situation for oil, it’s not so obvious that by the time those contracts expire, the storage situation around Cushing will be very different than what it is in May,” said Martijn Rats, Global Oil Strategist at Morgan Stanley, in a Bloomberg Radio interview. “The prices of these futures will need to connect to the physical reality, and they are likely to crack lower.”

WTI for June dropped 43% to $11.57 a barrel in New York. The thinly traded May contract closed at $10.01 a barrel.

Brent crude futures for June slumped 24% to close at $19.33 a barrel.

An American Petroleum Institute report showed that U.S. crude stockpiles rose 13.2 million barrels last week, according to people familiar. Supplies in Cushing, Oklahoma, rose 4.91 million barrels, according to the report.

The collapse is reverberating across the oil industry, with prices trading below zero across America on Monday. WTI Midland in Texas -- a flagship marker for the U.S. shale industry -- was at -$13.13 a barrel, while crude in Alaska was at -$46.63.

There are signs that these stunningly low prices are here to stay as tanks across the globe fill up. Royal Vopak NV, the world’s biggest independent storage company, said almost all of its space is sold.

Crude stockpiles at Cushing -- America’s key storage hub and delivery point of the WTI contract -- have jumped 48% to almost 55 million barrels since the end of February. U.S. nationwide inventories are estimated to have increased another 14 million barrels last week, according to a Bloomberg survey.

The Dated Brent benchmark, a global reference for nearly two thirds of the world’s physical flows, plunged to $13.24 a barrel on Tuesday, its lowest since 1999, according to price reporting agency S&P Global Platts. That means that key European and African crude streams, including Urals from Russia and Bonny Light from Nigeria, would sell now under $10 a barrel, as they trade at a discount to the Dated Brent benchmark.