The oil hub of Cushing, Oklahoma, has overcome times of stress before without losing its prime role in US oil pricing, but on Monday NYMEX crude oil futures plunged headlong into uncharted waters, playing host to a scarcely believable sequence of trading and making the concept of negative commodity pricing a stark reality. Although it later rebounded back into positive territory, the unprecedented move highlights like never before the potential difficulties of using Cushing — the delivery point of the NYMEX contract — as a pricing benchmark for oil trade in other US markets and beyond. With little over a day to go before […]