That’s right: a negative price. Oil has become so depressed that producers are paying buyers to take oil off of their hands. http://www.businessinsider.com/market-where-oil-selling-for-050-2016-1
And just where are they going to store all this cheapo oil ? There are already oil tankers full riding at anchor. Could take years to use it up sufficiently.
That's why they can buy oil for free. If you have capacity when no one else does, you can get stupid prices. Like guys who were buying PE investment stakes for zero because the sellers couldn't afford the next capital call.
I'm surprised this clickbait news is getting so much traction because Flint Hill's price list shows other grades of North Dakota oil at prices similar to the oil from other places, it's just one specific grade that's being priced like this.
That's what the article is about, one specific grade. " This specific type of crude is suffering from a perfect storm of bad news. " I assumed those who trade in oil mkts would find it interesting, moreso because those shrewed Koch bros. are involved.
The article is about a high-sulfur "sour" grade of crude. No one wants that stuff when low-sulfur "sweet" crude is abundant. No real story here outside of click-bait.
The -.50 bid was a mistake. Leave it to Business Insider (and apparently Oilprice.com) to publish a mistake as fact and a day late. OP is a pretty blatant plagiarism of the original Bloomberg article. The North Dakota Crude Oil That's Worth Almost Nothing