I think a big issue here is that the increased production in the USA and the US$400 billion petroleum production deal between Russia and China means that OPEC could lose the vast majority of its petroleum sales to the USA and China. And that will mean a huge glut of crude oil and natural gas very soon. In short, the speculators overplayed their hand and Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” just did a judo chop on the speculators.
I listen to a lot of biz tv during the day.
What’s interesting is that NOBODY was predicting this.
It’s a real wild card.
After the decline began, most of the experts were predicting a quick rebound by end of the year.