US oil prices entered negative territory for the first time, crashing more than 300% on Monday. May futures contracts of the West Texas Intermediary - US benchmark crude - fell from $17.85 per barrel, ending at -$37.63 per barrel. These prices are the lowest on record, on and come as the May contracts of the WTI being traded in New York is set to expire on April 21. These prices come as the global physical demand has virtually dried up as the COVID-19 pandemic ravages global economies, and amid growing crude stockpiles and squeezes on storage space.
Negative prices reflects the hesitance of buyers to take deliveries in an already saturated market, an expiry of the contract with negative prices will indicate that sellers will have to pay buyers to take delivery; who in turn will have to incur storage and other costs, analysts told Reuters.
It is unlikely that the sharp drops in the WTI will translate to cheaper oil price transmissions at Indian petrol pumps.
Information from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) - under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas - shows that the Indian crude oil basket (Indian Basket) does not depend on the WTI, which is a north American basket. Rather, the Indian basket is calculated as the weighted average of Oman, Dubai and Brent. This can be seen here. Brent is trading $21.59 on 7:05 Eastern Time (time in the east coast of the United States), according to Bloomberg data.
Secondly, oil prices that are borne by consumer are those of finished goods - namely petrol and diesel - which also have a tax component in them. The central government imposes central excise duty, sales tax and customs on a variety of petroleum products (whose data with the PPAC can be seen here) , with state government imposing different level of VAT (value-added tax).
However, as of 7:04 am Eastern Time , the May contract seems to have recovered sharply, by close to 83%, trading at -$6.25, gaining $31.38,s hows live market data from Bloomberg. The June contract however, was trading at $20.43 per barrel at the end of April 20.
On April 12, to mitigate global falling demand, countries from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies signed the largest ever oil production cut deal, slashing global output by 10% - around 9.7 million barrels per day.
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