timelets | (no subject)

Ever since the beginning of the price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, and subsequently the collapse in oil prices, the Wall Street Journal opinion writers stopped exalting economic advantages of Texas vs California. They don't talk much about the wisdom of environmental deregulation and corporate stock buybacks either. By now, Netflix alone is probably generating more profits than the entire oil industry.

The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude to be delivered in May, which closed at $18.27 a barrel on Friday, ended Monday at negative $37.63. That effectively means that sellers must pay buyers to take barrels off their hands.

The historic low price reflects uncertainty about what buyers would even do with a barrel of crude in the near term. Refineries, storage facilities, pipelines and even ocean tankers have filled up rapidly since billions of people around the world began sheltering in place to slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-oil-is-11-a-barrel-now-but-three-times-that-in-autumn-11587392745