Most producers of oil and gas hedge a good portion of their production against falling prices. Derivative trading. Be interesting to see who goes belly up on the other end of those hedges...
I hop one of them is George Soros.
Listened to Fox Business on Thursday or Friday and the big whigs were talking oil. Several billionaire type investors did not see a firm bottom immediately, but; they did not think oil would go lower then a few bucks. In fact they predicted 100 plus oil very soon. They said best enjoy and travel fast.
the largest buyers on the other side to my knowledge are airlines doing exactly what the producers are doing from the other side. Smoothing out costs. Now one airline may have more pre purchased product than other as a percentage of usage but we’re talking about a really small difference when factored out over millions of miles. The U.S. government likely also pre purchases oil in the same way. I can’t think they would leave something like fuel for military vehicles to the vagaries of market movement. Refineries i believe also pre purchase.
With gold its a different story. Theres much more speculative buying since its buying to fill a demand thats not necessary but rather more along the lines of a luxury.