OREANDA-NEWS. The fall in the price of WTI (West texas intermediate) American oil to a negative value may repeat on May 19 on the day of expiration (completion of the circulation of futures contracts on the stock exchange) of the June futures for this oil grade. The chances of this are pretty small, but such an opportunity is not excluded, experts say polled by Russian media.

A month ago, for the first time in history, the cost of futures for WTI crude oil for May delivery collapsed to a negative value - to minus $ 37.6 per barrel, which caused a panic in the market. Experts note that this situation was only partially triggered by a drop in oil demand and a lack of storage facilities, so a repetition of this case is possible in the current market conditions.

Now there are few speculators compared with the situation in April, he said. According to the Moscow Stock Exchange, if on April 20, Russian investors owned 74.3 thousand WTI contracts, then by May 14 their number in this futures contracted 3.5 times - to 21 thousand. At the same time, the position of individuals decreased by 9 times - to 2.7 thousand