Oil closes at minus $37 a barrel as global storage reaches maximum capacity.

U.S. crude prices plummeted Monday, dropping by almost 300 percent to turn negative for the first time ever as cratering demand pushed storage facilities to their limits.

West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark crude, sank to an unprecedented low of minus $37.63 a barrel by the close of the oil market on Monday, a staggering level that essentially means producers would be paying buyers to take oil off their hands.

Oil set to be delivered in May was hardest hit, since that futures contract expires on Tuesday. The June contract also fell, though by a far smaller margin of 18 percent.

Social distancing lockdowns across the world have slashed demand to almost zero as much of the world's industry and travel have ground to a halt. Even a historic production cut agreement between OPEC and its allies did not provide the momentum required to stanch the surplus, as producing countries continue to pump oil ahead of the May 1 implementation.

In addition, tanks, ships, and pipelines are almost full, complicating the calculus for many U.S. producers who want to hold on to their oil until the outbreak subsides and there is greater demand.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/oil-prices-tumble-lowest-level-1980s-n1187716

Guess we can officially stop worrying about "peak oil".

This is going to be a hell of a ride.

Yeah.  You can buy a barrel of crude for a six-pak of beer.  It's really due to the price war that is raging between Saudia Arabia and Russia.  Russia is trying to muscle into the market, and the Saudis are dumping crude on the world market in an effort to bankrupt them.

The more of the supply, the lower the price.  Economics 101.

"Social distancing lockdowns across the world have slashed demand to almost zero as much of the world's industry and travel have ground to a halt."

Maddog wrote:"Social distancing lockdowns across the world have slashed demand to almost zero as much of the world's industry and travel have ground to a halt."

Perhaps King Donald should not have dithered for 70-days, while the Trumpvirus got a firm grip on the people of the United States.

Aircraft are queued up these days in hubs as ticket sales wane. No flights, no need for fuel. Seriously, who would fly these days? Every time a flight lifts off, about 29% of the passengers come down with some infectious disease. It's spread through the airflow systems. https://www.dimsumdaily.hk/risk-of-covid-19-infection-on-board-of-airplane-in-the-wake-of-9-confirmed-cases-of-egypt-group-tour-members/

Automobiles are left in the garage. Buses are warehoused in yards, as ticket sales plummet. Travel by automobile or bus means restaurants and motels/hotels. Good luck finding any, and when you do, good luck avoiding the guy across the aisle who is having coughing/sneezing fit.

Hence, not much need for fuel these days. Stay at home and pickup a book, watch a movie, or play with the kids...what a novel idea.

What a coincidence that Russia would pick this time to wage an oil war. Petrol is so plentiful that they have to pay someone to store it. In the past storage of oil was unheard of...it was stored while transporting it in tankers. Yes, perhaps Republicans should not have sleepwalked the first few weeks of the pandemic.

It was bound to happen. Remember GWB and the market crash of October, 2008? Republicans and catastrophes go arm-and-arm. The first term of every Democratic regime is spent cleaning up the garbage left by the prior occupants.

Peak oil refers to the fact that the world's oil resources are finite. We will hit a peak in our extraction of oil (and other fossil fuels) and then we'll extract less and less, until the planet runs dry.

That's another reason the development of alternate energy sources is important. We can't take it for granted that we'll always be able to consume fossil fuels -- we won't be able to. Already, fossil fuels companies are resorting to techniques that weren't needed decades ago -- off-shore drilling, drilling tar sands and fracking are the biggest "radical" extraction techniques.

It's simple logic -- the biggest energy companies in the world wouldn't have turned to off-shore, tar sands and fracking if fossil fuels were still abundant beneath the surface of the planet.

Ben Reilly wrote:Peak oil refers to the fact that the world's oil resources are finite. We will hit a peak in our extraction of oil (and other fossil fuels) and then we'll extract less and less, until the planet runs dry.

That's another reason the development of alternate energy sources is important. We can't take it for granted that we'll always be able to consume fossil fuels -- we won't be able to. Already, fossil fuels companies are resorting to techniques that weren't needed decades ago -- off-shore drilling, drilling tar sands and fracking are the biggest "radical" extraction techniques.

It's simple logic -- the biggest energy companies in the world wouldn't have turned to off-shore, tar sands and fracking if fossil fuels were still abundant beneath the surface of the planet.

I know what peak oil is.

I also know that we have no place to put the stuff now and will never hit peak oil, with cleaner technology becoming available, and making it obsolete.

I also know there is a lot more down there, if the price gets high enough to go after it, which is unlikely.

The question is, do you remember the gloom and doom of 15 years ago, about how the world was going to run out because we were fast approaching peak oil?

Surely nothing existed that long ago! 15 years, what is this madness????

Oil = finite.  Redneck's thinking is the same of Enron's.  Nothing can hurt me!  Until it does.  Typical middle management.

We will run out of oil, right after the UK and WV runs out of coal.

Maddog wrote:

Ben Reilly wrote:Peak oil refers to the fact that the world's oil resources are finite. We will hit a peak in our extraction of oil (and other fossil fuels) and then we'll extract less and less, until the planet runs dry.

That's another reason the development of alternate energy sources is important. We can't take it for granted that we'll always be able to consume fossil fuels -- we won't be able to. Already, fossil fuels companies are resorting to techniques that weren't needed decades ago -- off-shore drilling, drilling tar sands and fracking are the biggest "radical" extraction techniques.

It's simple logic -- the biggest energy companies in the world wouldn't have turned to off-shore, tar sands and fracking if fossil fuels were still abundant beneath the surface of the planet.

I know what peak oil is.

I also know that we have no place to put the stuff now and will never hit peak oil, with cleaner technology becoming available, and making it obsolete.

I also know there is a lot more down there, if the price gets high enough to go after it, which is unlikely.

The question is, do you remember the gloom and doom of 15 years ago, about how the world was going to run out because  we were fast approaching peak oil?

 

You really are a fucking idiot..

Texas isn't the centre of the universe..

These days, the oil industry is a "global" industry; and on a "global" basis, both the petro-chemical and the coal extraction industries have already passed "peak production".

Your statement that Texas will "never run out" of its finite oil resources only goes to show you up for the ignorant, clueless and uneducated redneck dolt that you are..

What you should have said was that Texas won't run out of crude oil in your lifetime -- but your irrational and unreasoning "libertarian" brain is simply to small and self-centred to handle that concept...

Amen, Wolf. Better said than I could have.

Dog, we wont run out of Coal ,we enough to last hundreds of years . Now that we have mostly stopped using it , probly thousands !

nicko wrote:Dog, we wont run out of Coal ,we enough to last hundreds of years . Now that we have mostly stopped using it , probly thousands !

Which is why we won't run out of oil. Cleaner stuff is coming on line, and there is plenty still down there.

Maddog wrote:

nicko wrote:Dog, we wont run out of Coal ,we enough to last hundreds of years . Now that we have mostly stopped using it , probly thousands !

Which is why we won't run out of oil. Cleaner stuff is coming on line, and there is plenty still down there.

We're never going to truly "run out" of oil, either -- even if we never switched to alternatives, we'd simply get to the point where the last remaining supplies would cost so much to extract that it'd be pointless, because you'd be losing money.

It still means we must switch to alternatives -- even leaving "clean" out of the equation, we need to find something to power our lives once oil is effectively not the answer.

If we do it sooner rather than later, we can make it a nice transitional period in which alternative energy can be phased in gradually, along with the vehicles that run on it, and it will be less of a shock to people's lifestyles and the global economy.

Y’all can always do another 9/11 “war” and go get some more....

eddie wrote:Y’all can always do another 9/11 “war” and go get some more....

In the meantime, if we can literally get $37 per barrel just to store it, I say we offer up the back garden as storage for 2,000 barrels and hey presto, there's our spouse visa.

We can always stack them.

eddie wrote:Y’all can always do another 9/11 “war” and go get some more....

I guess you didn't hear Trumps threats to blow an Iranian ship out of the water today. Bumped the prices up a few bucks a barrel.

It would be better if we could get Iran and Saudi to go at and leave us out though.

Ben Reilly wrote:

eddie wrote:Y’all can always do another 9/11 “war” and go get some more....

In the meantime, if we can literally get $37 per barrel just to store it, I say we offer up the back garden as storage for 2,000 barrels and hey presto, there's our spouse visa.

We can always stack them.

I like your thinking bruh!