Oil declined for a fifth straight week amid a one-two punch from collapsing demand due to the coronavirus crisis and ballooning supply from producers vying for market share. Futures in New York slumped 4.8% on Friday and are poised for the biggest quarterly drop on record as weak demand and an onslaught of supply roil markets. Refineries across the globe are curbing consumption as fuel use declines with people staying home. Meanwhile, major trader Trafigura Group expects as much as 1 billion barrels to be sent into storage tanks.
More oil is headed into stockpiles as the Russia-Saudi war for market share that exacerbated crude’s crash this month shows no sign of abating. The kingdom held firm on Friday, saying it hasn’t had any contacts with Moscow about output cuts or on enlarging the OPEC+ alliance of producers. Russia also doubled down, with Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin saying oil at $25 a barrel is unpleasant, but not a catastrophe for Moscow.
“There’s no doubt this is the swiftest and largest shock to oil since it was discovered in the 1800’s,” said Leo Mariani, equity research analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets. “For demand, we are looking at multi-standard deviation demand destruction. There’s no good playbook for investors on how to handle this.”