The world could soon run out of space to store oil. Prices may plunge below zero

[BluffFace]

I like this:

The price is trying to go to a level to force companies to keep the oil in the ground. If it has to go negative to incentivize that behavior, then it will.

[foxyv]

You are also encouraging people to build storage which will buffer prices in the future as demand comes up again.

[johnmarcus]

my heart goes out to all Venezuelans right now. Their poorly run government pretty much bet the entire farm on oil and with the depreciation in recent years it was already tough living there. At a price close to 0, it can not be good.

[Mediterraneo10]

And sadly they can't quickly grow tourism due to the crime rate and instability (and now coronavirus). The country has incredible opportunities for tourism but it will take years first to solve its problems and then overcome its reputation.

[fragmede]

Covid-19 can't be helping things but oversimplifying Venezulea geopolitical situation as "a poorly run government" ignores the fact that there are multiple state-level actors (internally and externally) working against their best interests.

[intopieces]

Any speculation about what this will mean for electrification efforts? Specifically for cars. I thought high prices were good for that, but if the oil market collapses entirely it could drive some suppliers out of business.

[diafygi]

Battery and electric vehicle lifetime costs (including electricity) are rapidly approaching the manufacturing and maintenance costs of internal combustion engine vehicles. That means that even if the fuel is free, it will be cheaper to operate an electric vehicle.

Low oil prices can delay that cost intersection, but won't prevent it from eventually happening because internal combustion vehicles are more complex and costly to maintain even without taking into account fuel costs. So as long as EV manufacturing costs continue to decline and electricity continues to get cheaper from low cost renewables, ICE vehicles will eventually become obsolete no matter the oil price.

[dang]

Please don't take HN threads further into generic ideological flamewar, which is an internet black hole and explicitly against the site guidelines.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22749317 and marked it off topic.

[Dylan16807]

You can't blame every bad thing a country does on how they run markets.

It's especially ridiculous to pretend the markets are more important than democracy vs. oligarchy vs. dictatorship.

[4gotunameagain]

Most regimes you mention are dictatorships, not socialistic. Also quite a few of them were actively fought against by the capitalistic United states, contributing to social unrest and even downright organizing coups.

These are complicated systems which cannot be reduced just to "Socialism death toll" or "Capitalism death toll".

[ws66]

[flagged]

[cityzen]

and yet gas prices will remain the same...

[BenjiWiebe]

In central Kansas, gas prices are totally plummeting.

[sharksauce]

Regular 87-octane gasoline has dropped almost seventy cents per gallon in price in central Texas since this madness started. Oil producers in the state are getting squeezed hard right now.