Sino-Singapore Jingwei client, April 21, local time Monday, the New York Mercantile Exchange WTI May crude oil spot contract closed down 55.90 US dollars to -37.63 US dollars / barrel, the first time in the history of international crude oil futures closed at a negative value, the decline Up to 305.97%. In the same day's trading, the WTI May spot contract fell to a minimum of -40.31 US dollars / barrel. The price of oil fell to a negative value, which meant that the seller had to pay the buyer a fee before the buyer could take the crude oil from him.
Yan Jiantao, deputy general manager of Longzhong Information, interpreted that the most important factor currently affecting oil prices is not production cost, but inventory, especially in inland oil-producing areas. The epidemic caused problems such as poor infrastructure and transportation and logistics, and crude oil was difficult to export or store. Closing wells and shutting down production purely for economic reasons is risky, so production continues. If the storage capacity of the storage tank is insufficient or the storage cost is too high, the producer would rather accept the negative oil price and have to lose money to let the buyer pull away.
Jin Jing, a senior analyst at Jinlianchuang Energy, pointed out that the tight storage capacity caused oil prices to fall into a capital rush. Although numerically, the WTI spot contract price fell to a negative value space, it seems that the market has entered the "US shale oil producers need to pay crude oil buyers to deal with the excess crude oil produced" However, considering that due to the special delivery background, the crude oil market investors have completed the transfer operation from the spot contract to be delivered to the second-tier active contract at an earlier time than before, and most of the global The valuation of regional crude oil spot trade has long been transferred to the June contract, so the negative value of the WTI May contract decline should be interpreted as a pure capital carnival, rather than meaning that crude oil has lost its processing value and use value in the current market supply and demand background .
On Monday, the Intercontinental Exchange Brent June crude oil spot contract closed down 2.51 US dollars to 25.57 US dollars / barrel, a decrease of 8.94%.
Reuters reported that the international indicator Brent crude oil futures prices also fell sharply, but it is far less weak than US crude oil, because there is more room for oil storage worldwide.
On the morning of the 21st, Beijing time, the WTI crude oil futures contract in May returned to a positive value, with a maximum of $ 2.54 per barrel, an increase of more than 103%. (Sino-Singapore Jingwei app)