India’s basket of oil imports hasn’t become quite so cheap, but our bill has fallen sharply all the same Can crude oil be sold at a negative price?
Well, it did happen. A futures contract for West Texas oil traded at about minus $40 per barrel. In effect, this meant someone paid money to be relieved of an oil delivery in a landlocked US state.
Storage is costly, after all. But, it also reflects a global market glut left by the Great Lockdown, which has shut off combustion engines that wheel and wing people around the world.
Of the 100-million-odd barrels being used up daily before the covid crisis, some 30% is no longer needed, by one estimate. Overall supply has also reduced, but not by that much.