The benchmark price for a barrel of North American oil dipped below $20 US on Monday morning, the first time that's happened in 18 years. The true price is, in fact, even lower than that, because that price includes in part the cost of lighter oil that oilsands crude is blended with in order to get it to move along a pipeline. When refineries shut down, then many crude oil producers have nowhere to send their crude oil." Canadian oilsands producers are facing "months of lower production at prices close to zero," analysts at JBC Energy said Monday morning. "For land-based or land-locked oil producers, this means only one thing: The local oil price … which they receive very rapidly goes to zero or even negative," Schieldrop said.

Source: CBC News March 30, 2020 15:45 UTC