Monday, April 20, 2020

Crude Oil is Now Cheaper Than Free

These are crazy times.
The dramatic collapse in worldwide demand for oil led to an extraordinary development on Monday: U.S. oil prices fell below zero for the first time ever, and kept falling.

The key U.S. oil benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, settled at negative $37.63.

Driven by a trading contract deadline, traders desperately looked for buyers for the barrels of oil they normally hold in their books. But buyers were hard to find — even when the oil was being given away for free.

So some traders, instead of paying to buy oil, were ready to pay as much as $37.63 to get someone to accept delivery of one barrel of oil.
A few years back, crude was at or over $100/barrel. Now, if you have a tank complex that can accept a lot of crude oil, you can get paid to fill it up.

If the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not topped off, now's the time.

13 comments:

  1. And now, with a Monday staple...for those playing at home, from four weeks ago:

    “B said...
    And yet the numbers just don't match the hysteria (again)

    Here is the real data as per johns Hopkins:

    WORLDWIDE:
    375,450 cases
    (7.5 BILLION people in the world...do the math)

    16,371 TOTAL deaths blamed on this disease. (so far, "normal" seasonal flu has killed over 20,000 people this year)

    For this we shut down our way of life and killed our economy?

    data source: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

    March 23, 2020 at 7:38 PM“

    So, lets update again...

    Total Cases/World: 2,474,858
    Total Cases/U.S.A.: 789,234 (#1 in the world, U S A, U S A, U S A!)

    Total Deaths/World: 169,967
    Total Deaths/U.S.A.: 42,298 (#1 in the world)

    The increases since B.'s first post....cases up 659.2% and deaths up 1038.2%...in four weeks. As a side note that's 8.5x the normal deaths from seasonal flu, eh B.

    So, let talk about the numbers. The U.S. has a test positivity rate of about 20%, which is unreasonably high, unless you understand the U.S. is so far behind in ability to test that we are only testing those with symptoms. The really ugly bit is we did 25 more tests last week than a month ago, and the positivity rate is actually climbing! As for B.'s new bogey (per capita, selected after less deaths than the flu stopped working), the U.S. is still gaining on the other top 5 countries, and may well have reached number 4. Tell us again how easy to control this is.

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  2. Regarding the SPR, I read elsewhere that it was recently refilled at $30bbl. Seemed like a good deal at the time.

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  3. I am glad that I matter so much to you, CP, that you have to comment off topic just to tell me how wrong you think I am.

    Sad, really.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I wonder how Putin and MBS are feeling about their production decisions now.

    -Doug in Sugar Pine

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  5. Can we throw the banksters from rooftops yet?

    ReplyDelete
  6. B., I will continue to post until you accept you were wrong about this being 1) like the flu and 2) not as bad. As we saw last week, you do not agree to those thesis.

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  7. CP your barking at the moon.

    Every number you quote has to be amended with *That we know of and increasing*.

    We know it exists, its very infectious, and can be lethal. You can let
    it run rampant at which point there will be no need for oil or much else.

    Of course you can go out and do your thing because its no big deal...
    I will not suggest that as I feel its the same as saying with literal
    intent, go get very ill and maybe drop dead.

    So cut the drama, your not on topic and your mostly wrong.

    Eck!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Even if it's off-topic, I like the weekly summary of how bad the numbers really are. B isn't the only person who used to claim "it's no worse than the flu" and has now been shown to be wildly off-base, and it's worth having this sort of reminder visible.

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  9. Ward,

    Save for his numbers are aging fast. They might have been true two weeks ago.

    US today is:
    4,300,000 tested
    803,000 confirmed cases
    75,300 recovered cases
    43,500 dead

    And climbing.

    Eck!

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  10. Eck, I’m a wee bit confused. I agree the numbers are low and lagging, but I don’t see how reminding people that a certain poster posited a few weeks again that this was no big deal is somehow me suggesting we need to open stuff up?

    Madam Comrade, just let me know if you want me to drop this, please. It is your forum.

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  11. https://wmbriggs.com/post/30407/

    https://wmbriggs.com/post/30450/

    OR, the simplified version for folks that can't understand statistics like CP:

    https://borepatch.blogspot.com/2020/04/nobody-will-argue-your-virus-math.html

    I'm not gonna post off topic any more on this set of comments.

    CP: I;m glad you have enough hate on for me to keep going though. Perhaps your hate can keep you warm.

    Perhaps many of y'all should take a class on statistics and how to interpret them.

    Have a nice day. Stay safe. (Seriously about the last)

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  12. Dear, dear, B., you just can’t give it a rest. My background is in statistics, and I understand them just fine. Your statement, comparing COVID-19 to the flu, was a clear attempt to make it seem that this virus wasn’t worth an effort to stop it because it would be just like any other flu year...and then you go to statistics showing that COVID-19 is already, with defensive actions taken worldwide, into the same category as the top flu cycles. The numbers your boy quotes are low anyway, as the total deaths reported already exceeds the bottom of his range, and we have a number of countries not reporting.

    Let’s look at Turkey...officially 601 caregivers have COVID-19, but speak to the doctors groups and the total is over 2,000 in Istanbul alone. Africa, with literally no testing available outside most capitals in all interior Africa. Sweden, now has the highest deaths and infection rate of Scandinavia...I’m sorry, that’s a favorite of Conservatives, but it isn’t working. South America, mass graves and cardboard coffins, but an official rate that is surprisingly low. Russia...China (second wave of lockdowns starting)...Japan...Mexico...take your pick, buddy boy.

    It isn’t hate, it’s simply holding you accountable for your pronouncements, kinda like the Press Corp is trying to do with Donnie and being called “nasty” and told to lower their voices in response. Him, another parallel.

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  13. Of the cases in the USA, how many are New York City?
    How short of ventilators did New York State become?
    Maybe check this out:

    https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

    look at some data, and realize Trump cannot be blamed for shit that someone else screwed up or that didn't even happen.

    ReplyDelete

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