Oil prices have plunged into an all time low as West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is now trading at $-2 per barrel, while Brent down by 8.9%, is trading at $25.57 a barrel. This will be the lowest Oil futures has traded in two decades and this is as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic which has made demand for crude to continue to plummet and U.S. storage tanks fill up, despite a landmark deal between OPEC and its allies to cut global production by record levels.
The low demand for crude due to the pandemic resulted in the negative turn oil took on monday and this has discouraged buyers as there are doubts on when fuel consumption will recover fully. Aside for the novel COVID-19, price war between Russia and Saudi also contributed to an oversupply that drove crude lower, to the disadvantage of US shale producers.
A deal announced last week between OPEC and its peers would have lowered production by about 10 million barrels a day from May, but that's plainly not enough.
In other energy trading, May gasoline RBK20, -5.64% lost 4.24 cents, or 6%, to end at 66.83 cents a gallon, while June heating oil HOM20, -5.25% shed 6.85 cents, or 7.2,%, to close at 88.78 cents a gallon. May natural-gas futures NGK20, +11.63%, meanwhile, gained 17.10 cents, or 9.75, to $1.9240 per million British thermal units.
