Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending

Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by jobu on Monday April 20, 2020 @12:09PM (#22925189)

Saudi Arabia still has the cheapest oil production costs in the world at $8.98/barrel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_oil#Comparative_cost_...)

They probably aren't making enough right now to pay for all of their commitments, but they definitely aren't losing money and they can likely borrow in the short term.

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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by chasd00 on Monday April 20, 2020 @12:50PM (#22925676)

It's not that they are losing money on production, the state budget is in the red with a price less than about $80/bbl

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-economy-budget/saud...

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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by puranjay on Monday April 20, 2020 @02:34PM (#22926852)

Oil in most countries pays the producers and some subsidies to farmers, truckers, etc.

Oil in Saudi Arabia pays the entire country

$8.98 might be the breakeven price for Saudi Aramco, but for the country, the breakeven point is, iirc, $80/barrel

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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by koheripbal on Monday April 20, 2020 @12:17PM (#22925312)

Not to mention they just had an IPO on their state oil company and raised a shot load of money.

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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by lozaning on Monday April 20, 2020 @02:47PM (#22926980)

I thought that had been called off no?

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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by beervirus on Monday April 20, 2020 @05:36PM (#22928863)

They wound up doing a limited sale to local investors. It has been suggested that there was some "influence" applied to the investors to put the price where it needed to be instead of at the purely market price.

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