* Crude in U.S. storage near all-time high
* Brent ended last week down 24%; WTI off around 7%
* For graphic on oil price collapse, click:
* https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-OIL/0100B5LV472/index.html
(Changes dateline, adds comment, detail)
By Noah Browning
LONDON, April 27 (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Monday on
concerns about scarce storage capacity and global economic
doldrums from the coronavirus pandemic.
U.S. oil futures led losses, falling by more than $2 a
barrel on fears that storage at Cushing, Oklahoma, could reach
full capacity soon.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate June futures fell $2.42,
or 14.3%, to $14.52 a barrel by 0830 GMT.
Brent crude was down 90 cents, or 4.2%, at $20.54 a
barrel. The June Brent contract expires on Thursday.
Oil futures marked their third straight week of losses last
week - and have fallen for eight of the past nine - with Brent
ending down 24% and WTI off around 7%.
The June WTI contract's price fall may have been triggered
by investors moving to later months to avoid a similar fate,
with the front-month contract trading at lower-than-usual
volumes.
Retail investors were caught off guard last week when the
May WTI contract plunged into negative territory for the first
time ahead of its expiry as traders scrambled to avoid having to
take delivery of oil.
"The market is very concerned of a repeat of negative
pricing as the Cushing storage and delivery hub saturates,"
Harry Tchilinguirian, global oil strategist at BNP Paribas in
London, told the Reuters Global Oil Forum.
"The shift of open interest away from June will have negative
consequences for the liquidity of the contract, potentially
leading to greater volatility in its price," he added.
U.S. crude inventories rose to 518.6 million barrels in the
week to April 17, near an all-time record of 535 million barrels
set in 2017.
Cushing, the delivery point for WTI, was 70% full as of
mid-April, although traders said all available space was already
leased.
Global economic output is expected to contract by 2% this
year, worse than the financial crisis, while demand has
collapsed 30% due to the pandemic.
In the United States, a record 26.5 million Americans have
filed for unemployment benefits since mid-March, and the
Congressional Budget Office predicted that the economy would
contract by nearly 40% annually in the second quarter.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and
its allies including Russia, a group known as OPEC+, pledged
this month to cut output by an unprecedented 9.7 million barrels
per day in May and June.
Kuwait and Azerbaijan are coordinating oil output cuts,
while Russia is set to reduce its western seaborne exports by
half in May.
(Additional reporting by Florence Tan in Singapore and David
Gaffen in New York; editing by Richard Pullin and Jason Neely)
