Brent crude fell below $ 20 a barrel and US crude fell 25%.
Fuel demand has decreased by 30% worldwide. Storage is gaining value as approximately 85% of land storage areas worldwide have been filled as of last week.
Economic concerns continue to disturb the market. The global economic output is expected to shrink by 2% this year.
West Texas Intermediate crude futures (WTI) fell $4.16, or 24.6%, to settle at $12.78 a barrel. Brent crude slid $1.45, or 6.8%, to settle at $19.99 a barrel.
Traders say that the crude oil contract has partially declined. They shifted June retail contracts, stock exchange investment funds, to front month in order the oil contract not to be trapped at $ 37.63 a barrel, as it did a week ago.
Markets have dropped over eight of the last nine weeks. Oil futures ended their third straight weekly losses last week with a 24% drop for Brent and a 7% drop for WTI.
After last week’s losses, the largest oil exchange product, the US Oil Fund, said it would shift its shares to subsequent contracts by selling all its assets in the June contract.
Crude oil inventories at the Oklahoma delivery center Cushing for WTI were said to have increased over 6% per week to 65 million barrels by April 24. However, inventories rose only 0.5% from Tuesday to Friday. Inputs at Cushing have slowed down somewhat, either indicating that there are alternative places to store oil or a major drop in production.
