Originally Posted by
Deltasierra010
A week ago oil was being traded at a negative value because sellers could not find buyers at any price when the contract ended, it was only virtual oil there was no intention of delivering physical commodity.
No, there
was intention of delivering physical commodity – that's why prices went negative. Producers had nowhere to put the stuff, so they were paying traders to take it away. The alternative was to shut in wells and stop producing, but if you shut in oil wells of the kind that you find all over the main US oil-producing region, they tend to clag up and need expensve workover to get going again. Rock and hard place. It was a brief dip, and happened only in the US market (West Texas Intermediate). Elsewhere in the world, prices didn't go negative (e.g. Brent crude).