Demand for oil has all but dried up as lockdowns across the world have kept people inside.
The price of United States oil has turned negative for the first time in history.
That means oil producers are paying buyers to take the commodity off their hands over fears that storage capacity could run out in May, the BBC reports.
Demand for oil has all but dried up as lockdowns across the world have kept people inside.
As a result, oil firms have resorted to renting tankers to store the surplus supply and that has forced the price of US oil into negative territory.
The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for US oil, fell as low as minus $37.63 a barrel.
The severe drop on Monday was driven in part by a technicality of the global oil market.