On November 23, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) published an interim report regarding the circumstances leading up to the negative settlement price on April 20 of the West Texas Intermediate Light Sweet Crude Oil futures contract (WTI Contract) traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The report outlines the events of the WTI Contract market between January 1 and April 21, and also sets forth data on the geopolitical and fundamental economic drivers, as well as certain technical factors, preceding and coinciding with the negative settlement price of the WTI Contract on April 20, the first time the WTI Contract traded at a negative price since being listed for trading 37 years ago. Importantly, the report does not consider whether forces outside of supply and demand impacted prices leading up to, on, or around April 20 and does not identify the root cause(s) of any price movement of the WTI Contract leading up to, on, or around April 20.

The press release is available here.

Access to the interim report is available here.