The price of US oil has turned negative for the first time in history, the BBC reports.
Following the BBC, "that means oil producers are paying buyers to take the commodity off their hands over fears that storage capacity could run out in May."
There is a zero demand for oil due to the worldwide lockdown caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
''Oil firms have resorted to renting tankers to store the surplus supply and that has forced the price of US oil into negative territory,'' the BBC reports.
Oil price turmoil set to continue https://t.co/R60okRAAky
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''The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the benchmark for US oil, fell as low as minus $37.63 a barrel.
The severe drop on Monday was driven in part by a technicality of the global oil market. Oil is traded on its future price and May futures contracts are due to expire on Tuesday. Traders were keen to offload those holdings to avoid having to take delivery of the oil and incur storage costs,'' the BBC says.
Vakho Revazishvili
News Author