The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its partners have been cutting production since September 2016. Between September and November 2016 they cut production by more than 1.7 million barrels a day, a historical cut that was wrongly prolonged throughout the expansionary phase of the global economy. In December 2018 they cut production again.
As of April 26, there were nearly 55,000 COVID-19 deaths reported in the United States. Of those, more than 22,000 (or about 40 percent) were in the state of New York alone. New Jersey was in second place, with nearly 5,900 COVID-19 deaths reported.
Americans are uniquely privileged, to the point of simply imagining they can stay home for months and months without suffering severe economic hardship as a result. Our unique privilege is delusion, the mentality that America is rich and will remain rich without particular effort on our part.
April 20, 2020, has become a fateful day in the history of the oil industry, with prices plunging to a –$37 per barrel.
The stimulus packages being handed out across this world provide us with an opportunity to document the anticapitalist process as it unfolds in real time, keeping in mind that when these inflation schemes fail, it will likely be blamed on capitalism.
Toward the end of March, when it became more and more clear how disruptive and serious the COVID-19 outbreak was going to be, many people expressed hope that even though the situation would be quite an ordeal at least it would provide an opportunity for the country to pull together and unite to defeat a common enemy.
When the customer receives defective, shoddy, or inferior-quality products and above market price—from the only game in town—the customer lacks an easy escape from incompetent or unscrupulous sellers. It behooves the customer to seek other viable options in the market from firms that offer similar products.
According to multiple ship-tracking data services such as Llyod’s List and Tanker Trackers, there are between 40 and 50 million barrels (bbl) of Saudi Arabian crude en route to the US at the moment. As such, US crude imports are set to surge in May. Although this level of imports seems unfathomable amid the current rout in US crude prices, it may actually be a welcome development for both US crude producers and oil refiners.
