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Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending

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Re: Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending

#451
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saudi makes up shit when they say their extraction costs are $3/barrel. A lot of clever accounting in that one. Actual extraction costs are roughly $10-$15/barrel.

Why do they or why would they make up extraction costs? (Genuinely interested)

To have an upper hand in negotiation. Everyone knows Saudi can win the war of attrition with oil at low prices they just don’t know by how much.

Re: Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending

#452
post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the answer to the question you are asking, you should change careers into oil contract trading; you'll probably make a bundle. In short, the reason nobody anticipated it is because the future is unknown. The reason any market is unpredictable is because there are too many variables to account for.

I think he's asking why the market didn't have a better estimate of storage capacity and utilization and what changed in the estimate from yesterday to today.

Based on a vague memory from years ago - so I could be totally wrong here - you're assuming knowledge he doesn't have.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but: The people doing the trading are middlemen, and have no capacity period. They expected to be able to sell it all off to the energy companies, even at a loss, so they normally don't accept any physical product. But the energy companies ran out of capacity - something the middlemen (traders) don't have direct knowledge of - so got caught unexpected with contracts they can't sell, and now have to accept the physical product.

Re: Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending

#453
post #421
post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article from March 25 states that rates at Cushing more than doubled from 20 cents per barrel per month to 50 cents since February. https://www.reuters.com/article/global-oil-storage/global-oi...

If storage rate is cents per barrel and barrels cost negative dollars per barrel, is sounds like storage is still very affordable.

If you have an old oil field that is at end of life, couldn't you pick this stuff up at $-40.00/barrel and pump it back into the empty reservoirs? I'm sure there is regulation against it, but if it was once a production reservoir, why couldn't you store it there? You would have to drill. You wouldn't have to do much at all.

Re: Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been talking about the House of Saud falling for decades now and it hasn't happened yet. Although I thought A few years ago the young prince was going to make a bunch of drastic moves away from oil in order to secure the economic future of the country? Beyond a few articles in 2017, I haven't seen much of an update on that, anybody know if it was all just bluster, or are real things happening that would softe…

Every Arab ruler has tried to do this for decades, but this is a HARD problem: 1) Their climate sucks 2) They have very little arable land and lack water 3) Production of electricity is expensive 4) A lot of interior cities - not a lot of port access So, from a geographical perspective, what is SA supposed to produce that gives them a comparative advantage against the rest of the world? Then you move into the politic…

Saudi Arabia is in a good location for logistics and transshipment hubs (although this is something else they've probably lost to Dubai). There's also obvious tourism appeal, due to the historic sites in the Hejaz (probably already maxed out though, unless they want to open it up to non-Muslims). The other obvious choice for a commodities producer is to move up the value chain: go from selling crude oil to selling petroleum-based products instead.

The biggest issue is the effect that the resource curse on the workforce, as you note. There is a small contingent of well-educated Saudis (largely found in Saudi Aramco), and the country has instead relied largely on giving their population sinecures in the government, which hasn't exactly done wonders for productivity.

Re: Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention they just had an IPO on their state oil company and raised a shot load of money.

I thought that had been called off no?

They wound up doing a limited sale to local investors. It has been suggested that there was some "influence" applied to the investors to put the price where it needed to be instead of at the purely market price.

Re: Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is why the sudden move today? Did the longs think they had a place to put the oil on Friday but found out over the weekend they had no place to put it? Just seems like you would know what to do with the oil on Friday. Note this is not a rhetorical question, I would sincerely like an answer.

> What I don't understand is why the sudden move today? Did the longs think they had a place to put the oil on Friday but found out over the weekend they had no place to put it? Just seems like you would know what to do with the oil on Friday. Note this is not a rhetorical question, I would sincerely like an answer. Guys like myself, an ex fund manager, could be tourists in the oil market. I know I was, speculating o…

This reminds me of Brian Hunter [0] of Amaranth fame. He was on the wrong side of a huge (multi billion USD) long trade on Natural Gas. When faced with losing it all, he doubled down. Blew up Amaranth. $9B USD hedge fund blew up basically overnight. Margin calls, etc, etc.

Disclaimer: I worked for the hedge fund at the time that bought Amaranth's holdings for pennies on the dollar. Was supposed to be a joint buyout with JP Morgan Chase, but Chase couldn't calculate the risk in time before closing and left us with all of the eggs in the basket. We ended up making a killing on the deal as we had the assets to weather the margin calls. I still can't believe anyone gave B.H. any money to trade with after that, but someone did...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Hunter_(trader)

Re: Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The producers aren't gonna dump it (at least not in the US) because that is a surefire way to not only have the EPA bend them over but to have the EPA bend them over with the blessing of public opinion. Nobody wants to have their company be associated with pictures of oil soaked wildlife.

If you're an oil producer, you don't need to "dump" oil in the surrounding environment. You can just pump it back into the oilfield you've been extracting it from.

This isn't really possible in the near term. You can't just hook up oil into your water injection system.

Re: Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending

#458
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now trading at -$37.00. That's right. Negative thirty seven dollars. Today: -54.67, -299.23%. https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/crude%20oil%20-...

I wonder if that negative int broke a bunch of code in software around the world

Interesting math question: When we now start at a negative price tomorrow, what does a percentage change mean? Today, we have got losses >100%, unusual but obviously possible. But if price changes tomorrow from say $-10 to $10, is that again -200%? Does a change from $-10 to -$20 mean +100%?

(I obviously know percentage changes are not made for this)

Re: Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending

#459
post #447
post #445

Completely naive question, but I'm curious: all of the negatively priced oil is coming from Saudi Arabia and Russia. What keeps the US from applying large tariffs to oil imports from those countries (or on all imports)? If it's in our best interest to keep US oil companies alive (I understand that it is), wouldn't this be an effective way to accomplish this goal, with the side benefit of receiving additional tax reve…

Oil companies may benefit from keeping oil expensive, but other parts of the economy that depend on oil do not. For them, tariffs are an extra tax on them and ultimately consumers.

how many products are chemically dependent on hydrocarbons to exists ? I know a huge amount is based on them but some can be done without petrol.. some can not.

Re: Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending

#460
post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to try and translate the simplest concept that tempsy is saying. The sellers were looking to sell for most of last week, however there fewer buyers as the contract approached its end, and those who were willing to buy wanted a lower price: Volume of transactions on Friday was 344k, Thursday was 111m, Wednesday was 147m. In the past 30 days, the low was 686k (ex Friday), and the high was 459m. Traders slowed…

That still doesn't answer: why wasn't it anticipated and reflected in earlier pricing (even if volume-weighted it would be a much smaller drop, it still seems to have been missed even from futures options)?

The answer is, literally anyone with cash could sign up today and have an oil contract tomorrow. It is extremely easy to take part in oil contracts trading and those people who basically just have an office can't actually keep the contracts now and must unload. Contrary to what people think, you don't have to be an expert or have any special knowledge to trade physical contracts.
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