Oil prices fall 7% after record US crude storage build

NEW YORK: Oil prices sank on Wednesday after the United States reported a 19 million-barrel increase in inventories, the biggest weekly build ever, while forecasts showed global demand crumbling to its lowest levels in a quarter of a century due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The grim figures undercut the weekend agreement between numerous global producers to cut output in coming months, making clear that supply reductions would not be enough to prevent storage from filling and leaving numerous barrels stranded.

“We have crude oil backing up in the system in epic fashion,” John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital in New York, said after the U.S. government’s weekly oil inventory report. “This is probably one of the most bearish, if not darkest reports I’ve ever seen.”