The price of a barrel of oil is in freefall. From the New York Times:
Oil that is scheduled to be delivered in June fell 12 percent Monday to about $22 a barrel, but at the same time a benchmark for oil to be delivered next month was essentially deemed to be worthless. Owing largely to a quirk in the way that oil prices are set, the May benchmark actually fell into negative territory, suggesting people who had oil to sell were willing to pay people to take it off their hands.
HISTORIC CHART: WTI May oil futures settle at -$37.63 a barrel (yes, that's negative price). Of course, it goes without saying: that's an all-time low | #OOTT #OilPriceWar #covid19 via @TheTerminal pic.twitter.com/pM6S9u0wyc
— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) April 20, 2020
The reason is obvious, lack of demand. I am sure your car is like mine and has been barely used in the past few weeks. With lack of demand they are running out of space to store the oil they are still producing.
Already you can get 500 litres of home heating oil for £140, it will be worthwhile keeping an eye on the price and filling up your tank for next winter.
“Nippon Oil(Yamaguchi)” by kanegen is licensed under CC BY
I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.