Word: semgroup
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...placed limits such that no one firm can control more than 20 million bbl. of oil. Then again, a previously unknown energy-trading company called Vitol controlled 11% of the open interest on NYMEX at one point last summer, which amounted to four times that. Around the same time, SemGroup, a large oil-distribution company, filed for bankruptcy after losing $2.4 billion on a short position that also dwarfed the supposed limit...
...futures exchange. In late June and early July, speculators in oil futures battled one another, suspecting that a top was near. In the ensuing weeks, oil would come crashing down to earth as traders everywhere - including hedge funds, banks and pension funds - unwound their positions. And as SemGroup demonstrated, getting the timing wrong on this great unwind can have catastrophic results. (Read "Iraq's Pain at the Pump...
...SemGroup was short oil. Massively. That is, it had bet that the price was going down by contracting to sell millions of barrels of oil it did not own at a future date, on the assumption that the price would fall and SemGroup could supply the barrels at a lower price and pocket the difference. Three days after oil peaked, as it still threatened new all-time highs, the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) called margin on SemGroup, forcing the firm to put up more cash collateral to back its losing positions. Unable to raise the capital, SemGroup sold...
Given that SemGroup lost that much money as oil prices soared, it must have amassed a short position of at least 100 million bbl. of crude - that's about five times what the U.S. has on hand at any given moment. Had SemGroup bought back the oil on the open market, oil prices would have continued to skyrocket, feeding off the frenzy. Fortunately for consumers, Barclays was ready to assume SemGroup's position...
...there's far more to oil's big price plunge. SemGroup, of course, was now out of business, and as similar behavior came to a halt at other firms, oil lost its upward momentum. Enter the financial crisis, which dealt the finishing blow. The dollar had weakened during the first revelations of the mortgage crisis, but as that situation spun out of control into an international credit crisis, the currency markets favored the U.S. dollar. Since oil is traded internationally, as the dollar gained value, the price of oil in dollars had to come down. A weakening dollar played...