Navigating the Oil Industry Amidst Crisis

Demand for fuel has collapsed amid the coronavirus lockdowns, but the world keeps on pumping more crude and is fast running out of space to store it all.

Justin Rowlatt finds that even his local petrol station is struggling, with streets of London - like every other city in the world - largely empty of cars. Alan Gelder of energy consultants Wood Mackenzie describes the lengths to which oil producers are going to stockpile all the unwanted fuel products.

Meanwhile Opec and Russia agreed a major cut in production in recent days, but will it be enough to stabilise the market? Or will the Covid-19 pandemic prove the watershed moment in the history of mankind's consumption of oil? Justin speaks to Harvard professor and former US national security advisor Meghan O'Sullivan, and to clean energy consultant Michael Liebreich.

Producer: Laurence Knight

(Picture: Crude oil spilling out of a drum; Credit: Moussa81/Getty Images)