Hong Kong—Brent hit a two-decade low Wednesday as oil resumed its painful retreat and extended a rout that has torn through energy markets, though stock exchanges in Asia and Europe were mixed following a two-day sell-off.
With demand virtually non-existent owing to virus lockdowns, and production still high despite storage at bursting point, crude markets have been sent into freefall with WTI for May delivery diving to minus $40 on Monday.
Focus has turned to the June contract, which started Wednesday on fine form following news that top producers had held talks—but it plunged into the red in the afternoon, having lost almost half its value on Tuesday, when Brent collapsed by a fifth.
WTI surged 20 percent before changing course to sit more than four percent down later, while Brent was off more than 11 percent after earlier dropping 18 percent to $15.98–its lowest since 1999.
The crisis in the oil market caused by coronavirus was compounded by a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, but while they drew a line under the row and joined other key producers in slashing output by 10 million barrels a day, that has not been enough.
Crude’s rout “merely reflects the underlying theme that there is no demand for physical oil, and there is nowhere to store it”, said AxiCorp’s Stephen Innes.
“Disappointment following the new (oil cut) agreement continues to resonate, and responding to that outcry could be the one thing that turns the oil price around in the near term, absent evidence of demand recovery.”
Analysts said the morning bounce was driven by news that members of OPEC, as well as some allies in the OPEC+ grouping, held a teleconference Tuesday—but gloom soon returned.
Equity markets, buoyed in recent weeks by trillions of dollars of stimulus and signs of a slowdown in the rate of virus infection and death in some countries—and moves to slowly ease lockdown measures in a number of nations—are beginning to feel the spillover from the crude collapse.
Investors fear the rout could compound an expected deep global economic downturn.
Innes added that the oil crisis “has negative connotations for other areas of the market, most notably banks, given their high exposure to US shale producers."