--- title: "For the First Time Ever, the Price of Oil is Now Negative" description: "For the first time in history, the price of crude oil has gone negative around 2:30pm EDT as a result of plummeting demand amid the coronavirus outbreak." date: "2020-04-20" modified: "2020-04-20" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/first-time-ever-price-oil-negative" categories: - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "Pathogens" - "Viruses" tags: - "coronavirus" - "covid19" - "oil" - "the digest" --- # For the First Time Ever, the Price of Oil is Now Negative ![For the first time in history, the price of crude oil has gone negative around 2:30pm EDT as a result of plummeting demand amid the coronavirus outbreak.]() *\Image: Victor Tangermann\* ## Type Oil Negative For the first time in history, the price of crude oil has [gone negative]() — as a result of plummeting demand amid the coronavirus outbreak, [*Bloomberg* reports](). Oil traders are literally running out of space to store excess oil. In a single day, the price of oil dropped far below the previous record, set in 1946, when the world was still recovering from World War 2. ## A Storage Problem So what does this mean? "There's no storage left for oil, so extra oil becomes worthless," [wrote]() author and climate advocate Eric Holthaus on Twitter. "Oil companies are storing extra oil every way possible: filling oil tankers and parking them offshore, putting oil into pipelines and turning them off. At this rate global oil storage will be full in a few weeks," Holthaus [added](). ## Rock Bottom Despite the record drops, investors are still pumping money into oil futures, according to *Bloomberg*. "Refiners are rejecting barrels at a historic pace and with U.S. storage levels sprinting to the brim, market forces will inflict further pain until either we hit rock bottom, or COVID clears, whichever comes first, but it looks like the former," Michael Tran, managing director of global energy strategy at RBC Capital Markets, [told *Bloomberg*](). **READ MORE:** [Oil Plunges Below Zero for First Time With May Contract Ending]() \[*Bloomberg*\] **More on the pandemic:** [*THIS HEATMAP SHOWS SEVERITY OF COVID OUTBREAK IN EVERY US COUNTY*]() ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()