I tried to buy an actual barrel of crude oil (2015)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/that-time-i-tried-to-buy-some-crude-oil

by pjc50 • 6 years ago

413 156 6 years ago

simlan• 6 years ago

Thanks for sharing. That was a fun read from an unexpected source.

Not so unexpected: Tracy Alloway is one of the hosts of a jointly very-entertaining and highly-informative podcast by Bloomberg, Odd Lots.

_fs• 6 years ago

https://outline.com/meyY6X

Jimpulse• 6 years ago

Thanks for the non walled link!

LeoPanthera• 6 years ago

Hitting the Reader View button, at least in Safari, also allows you to read the full article.

thrwyoilarticle• 6 years ago

Curiously, it's a different article using reader view in Firefox.

therealmarv• 6 years ago

outline.com is cool. Did not know about this service. It seems it uses https://hypothes.is/ (btw. open source) for annotations too. Cool.

eagsalazar2• 6 years ago

Hijacks back button so you have to click a bunch of times really fast to get out of there.

eternalny1• 6 years ago

When this happens, you can always right-click the back button and select which page to go to.

a1369209993• 6 years ago

That's a blank page.

lstamour• 6 years ago

Works for me? Requires JavaScript.

krat0sprakhar• 6 years ago

Is there an open-source library that does this? I know readability existed at some point but now its no more. Using this, I'd love to build a self-hosted version of Pocket that supports full-text search etc.

wfriesen• 6 years ago

I use Wallabag as a self hosted Pocket alternative, which uses Graby and some custom filters by the graby author: https://github.com/j0k3r/graby

hnaln• 6 years ago

Are the images super small for everyone else too?

wmichelin• 6 years ago

yes

dreamcompiler• 6 years ago

They're super-blurry without javascript, which probably means they're very small, enlarged by the IMG tag dimensions, and loaded in full res by JS. As an encouragement to use JS, I guess.

damian_• 6 years ago

Outline.com is intellectual theft of someone else's IP and their right to monetise it. Would we accept this in any other domain than content?

dannykwells• 6 years ago

3 comments in 5 years, interesting to choose this hill to die on.

OJFord• 6 years ago

I don't think there's any opportunity cost to Bloomberg here, nobody freeloading on this site would otherwise be buying a subscription, I shouldn't have thought.

smbullet• 6 years ago

If we're not going to allow Outline we shouldn't allow paywalled articles on this forum.

noisy_boy• 6 years ago

When will this annoying trend of thin grey fonts on white die? It puts unnecessary stress on the eyes and all of us are not in their twenties.

dublinben• 6 years ago

NPR's Planet Money also bought some oil: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/08/26/491342091/plan...

duxup• 6 years ago

I think Planet Money also bought a mortgage backed security a while back when things had already gone south.

They tracked the houses involved and their history.

It was interesting to see the investment tied to specific homes, and etc.

NikolaeVarius• 6 years ago

Also a junk/high-yield bond https://www.npr.org/2020/02/19/807544557/meet-our-junk-bond

dcormier• 6 years ago

Toxie. Here are the relevant episodes:

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/06/01/131077279/toxi...

ngold• 6 years ago

They also have a bot kicking around somewhere to buy stocks on Trump tweets. Pretty interesting stuff.

Gustomaximus• 6 years ago

John Oliver bought peoples debt and released it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUAntt1z2c

kart234• 6 years ago

I've always wondered If I could just go out and buy like 10 mortgages or car loans in my area, and try to recover some of the money. I've heard that debt goes for pennies on the dollar, so I would think it would be possible to make a decent amount if you have the time.

neonate• 6 years ago

https://archive.md/BEiM0

dang4• 6 years ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10499297

Edit: Such links are simply for the curious. Reposts are ok after a year: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.

kryogen1c3• 6 years ago

have you considered some kind of presubmission check for this? even just to inform users without actually screening, and then auto appending previous discussions if submitted?

SilasX• 6 years ago

Well there’s the “past” button but you still have to click first. Maybe the “past” button could also list the number of previous submissions and the max number of comments of any submission (and/or max score)?

dang4• 6 years ago

Yes but it's not clear how to get it right.

drewzero1• 6 years ago

That would probably be helpful for informational use, but it seems to me like it would be frustrating to dump new comments into an old discussion. Maybe just a way to add a link to reference the prior discussion(s) like helpful people often do?

scurvy5• 6 years ago

Considering that the front-month oil contracts went negative today (paid to buy a barrel of oil), I think more (well funded and adept) players will try to hastily arrange more storage facilities. There's just no place to put the stuff right now.

It's quite difficult to turn-off an active well. Deep-water wells are all but impossible to stop.

Frost1x• 6 years ago

Deep-water wells are all but impossible to stop.

While I realize you're referring to a functioning deep-water well, working as designed, I can't help but remember the complete mess from Deepwater Horizon. If it's difficult to stop a correctly functioning deep-water well, I have even more respect for that mess of a situation (and a bit more disdain for the practice in general):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

tgb• 6 years ago

That was ten years ago today, actually. I just watched this wonderful 11 minute video on the failure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCVCOWejlag

mastratton32• 6 years ago

That occurred during drilling not production so all the standard well head facilities were not in place.

jofer3• 6 years ago

Actually, deep water wells are usually quite easy to shut in by design. They frequently need to be shut in due to hurricanes or infrastructure maintenance. You don't drill a $100 million deepwater well without all the bells and whistles.

Very cheap wells with low production (onshore, say ~10 barrel per day) are the ones that tend to be difficult to shut in, as they're not designed for easy temporary shut-ins.

That having been said, most of the "must produce" issues are contractual. There are plenty of contracts with production quotas/etc. Similarly, pipelines need a minimum volume to keep flowing, and once they're stopped, they can be difficult to start again (inspections/etc, as well as physically starting things flowing).

bdevine• 6 years ago

You've missed your very best chance ever to lead with "Well, actually"!

scurvy5• 6 years ago

That might have been true 20-30 years ago. Today, all of the easy oil has been tapped. They're going out farther, deeper, and under much high pressures than before. Oh, and they're less regulated.

You don't drill a $100 million deepwater well without all the bells and whistles. <

You will if you can make a couple $B off it. It's a risk. The deep gulf has mudslides that take out rigs. It happened to Taylor Energy in 2004. All the tech in the world couldn't prevent that spill.

https://www.nola.com/news/article_a55f87c0-8253-11ea-9f24-23...

D_Alex• 6 years ago

ALL wells, including the "very cheap wells" are easy to shut in, by design. It is an essential safety feature, mandated by all relevant codes, rules and regulations.

SOME wells can be a little difficult to restart after a shut-in. This includes, for example, offshore wells which extract waxy crude - the crude can simply solidify in the pipe if allowed to cool down to ambient temperature. See link below. This is usually not a big problem for a planned shutdown, as the facility will take measures to prevent such a situation (eg flush the pipes with diesel right after shutdown).

I suspect the problem might be more difficult with some pipelines, as these may be impractical to flush.

https://www.khavaranparaffin.com/articles/161-wax-problems-i...

A4ET8a8uTh0• 6 years ago

Does it happen often that future contract falls into negative territory?

asib• 6 years ago

No, this is the first time since oil futures began trading in 1983.

bhl• 6 years ago

The technical term for this is contango [1]. Last time this happened to crude oil was after the GFC, as mentioned in the article.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contango#Description

Digory• 6 years ago

The negative price has to do with the short delivery date, and the lack of storage at the (landlocked) delivery point. June 2020 WTI is still over $20/barrel.

If anyone had storage to bring online in the next few weeks, in Cushing, Oklahoma, they'd make a killing. At this point, they're going to need to ship it to a port, to get on a tanker.

foota8• 6 years ago

Anyone got a spare oil tanker? :-) I only slightly kid, makes me wonder how quickly I could acquire a number of oil storage units.

edit: this tanker is off the gulf coast right now... https://horizonship.com/ship/274m-suezmax-crude-oil-carrier-...

scurvy5• 6 years ago

Did you read the part where I wrote, "there's no place to put the stuff?"

I also specifically said "front month contract".

June oil is barely over $20 today and will probably drop under that mark by week's end.

foota8• 6 years ago

So like... why doesn't someone just fill a reservoir or something?

gowld• 6 years ago

You have to dig a hole before you can fill it.

scurvy5• 6 years ago

That's what the strategic petroleum reserve in Louisiana is. They filled massive salt domes with crude oil. The salt keeps away bacteria that can foul the oil.

vkou• 6 years ago

Nobody's going to spend money to build new storage facilities for an oil glut that will go away in, at most, a month or two.

jessaustin3• 6 years ago

If you're sure about that, I hope you're investing accordingly...

hanniabu• 6 years ago

I fully expect some environmental accident b/c that's cheaper than paying people to take it. Also considering at least in the US, the EPA was told not to investigate things during the shut down.

jedberg9• 6 years ago

When the price went negative, it made me wonder if I could legally take delivery of barrels of oil in my back yard.

I'd like to assume there are some EPA rules that preclude one from storing barrels of oil just anywhere, but at the same time, the EPA is currently not enforcing any regulations.

I also wondered about delivery on these contracts. Does that include delivery to any address I specify? Can I get paid $3000 to take 100 barrels and ask them to drop it off at my house?

And then what? After the price recovers and I want to sell the barrels, will someone come get them from house?

dragonwriter• 6 years ago

When the price went negative, it made me wonder if I could legally take delivery of barrels of oil in my back yard.

Typically, the exchange contract is quite specific about where and how delivery can be made, and “in barrels shipped to your backyard” isn't an option. See, e.g., the delivery procedures here: https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/energy/crude-oil/light-swee...

Also, “barrels” are just a (traditional for the commodity) unit of measure (42 US gallons/35 imperial gallons), not actual containers used for delivery.

betterunix23• 6 years ago

Even if the oil came in physical barrels, the contract is for 1000 barrels of oil, so you would need quite a lot of space in your back yard. That quantity is more like a railroad car full of oil. You might be able to arrange for the oil to be put in a tank car and delivered to a train track somewhere if you wanted to try this, though I suspect you would not make nearly as much money in the process as you think.

danieltillett• 6 years ago

I am surprised there hasn’t been an “accidental” pipeline leak around Cushing. Who could have known that leaving a valve open could dump so much oil onto the ground.

juped4• 6 years ago

Paid to take on the futures contract obligation. If you happened to need or want physical oil delivered in Oklahoma a month from today, you got a good deal as futures traders unloaded their contracts.

takinola• 6 years ago

The reason wells are hard to shut in has nothing to do with the actual turning off the tap. All wells are designed to turned off with BOPs (blow out preventers, etc). The problem is that if you shut in a well for an extended period of time, you damage the reservoir and will have to do remedial work to get it back to its production rate (if ever). This is why producers are not keen to shut down production. They have to weigh the short term cost of the current prices against the cost of future losses over the lifetime of the reservoir

cbanek• 6 years ago

Well, this aged well:

"The story of how I came to own physical oil begins in late 2008, when fallout from the financial crisis spurred the crude market into severe contango—meaning the price of oil for future delivery was higher than the expected price of immediate “spot” delivery. While contango is the usual and persistent state of the oil futures curve, this particular "super" version helped create the perfect conditions for an almighty oil storage trade as the price of crude for future delivery vastly eclipsed the cost-of-carry and storage expenses of petroleum bought in the spot market."

This is exactly where we are now, only the prices are much lower and the demand even weaker?

I remember reading this the first time it came out. Only better the second time.

betterunix23• 6 years ago

More or less, though it should be pointed out that the negative prices yesterday were for futures contracts that trade in 1000 barrel increments (roughly a railroad tank car) and not some tiny amount (like a blue barrel).

anonobviosly• 6 years ago

This reminded me of the opposite story: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/Special-Delivery

Tldr- commodities trader accidentally specified physical delivery for several thousand tons of coal; very surprised when the barges show up at their waterfront office.

smnrchrds• 6 years ago

I think the story is fiction. I don't think commodities are sent wherever your office is. Isn't the location of delivery set as a part of the futures contract?

juped4• 6 years ago

Yes (e.g., if you buy CL futures, delivery is in Oklahoma).

QL coal doesn't trade anymore (all the active coal futures I can find now are cash-settled) but delivery seems to have historically been at the discretion of the parties, so the story is at least plausible.

jcl• 6 years ago

Thedailywtf stories are generally some mix of fiction and fact. They take a presumably first-hand account from an insider and change a bunch of details to anonymize it and enhance it for dramatic effect.

I'd guess, for this particular story, that at least the misparsing of XML for a futures contract actually happened, and maybe that some producer consequently had to ask about the feasibility of delivering to a corporate office that happened to be in former docklands. It's entirely possible that the commodity involved was not coal, and it's extremely unlikely that a guy showed up one day at the front desk with a clipboard and barges outside.

In response to skepticism in the comments, the article's author gives an example of a futures contract on eggs where delivery was accidentally taken: https://web.archive.org/web/20090925022603/http://www.minyan...

LoSboccacc• 6 years ago

the fun part of the story is he was paid three quarter of dollar in bitcoin so he should now be a millionaire

fortran77• 6 years ago

The barrel may be worth more than the oil!

al_chemist• 6 years ago

According to the story, it's BYOB, bring your own barrel.

betterunix23• 6 years ago

In a sense, yes, that is what a negative price for oil means: the barrel is more valuable as a place to store oil than the oil being stored.

econcon• 6 years ago

I actually love buying stuff which is not easily available, this has given me many ideas of starting new business of which a few are successful now.

Sometimes it's hard for someone within a system to conceive an idea which is obvious to the outsider and yes there will be many naysayers but if you know your idea can create value, you'll profit.

vcanhoto• 6 years ago

Could you give an example? I understand if you don't want to though.

boldslogan• 6 years ago

construction comes to mind, equipment, materials, things usually sold only to companies. that would be interesting...a small crane shipped to your cottage.

gglnx• 6 years ago

Back in school (around 2006) I asked the PR department of German BP for a small sample of crude oil, that I need for my final assignment. A few weeks later I've got large glass bottle (I think maybe over a liter) of crude oil. The package needed the signature of my mom because it was a dangerous goods transport. I think the shipment was for BP more expensive than the Russian oil itself...

I tried to buy an actual barrel of crude oil (2015)

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