It’s called a “contango” in the oil market. That’s when the market price of crude oil is lower than the price of oil futures.

What we had back in April 2020, when the economic ripples of COVID-19 were laying waste to the global energy markets, is what we call a “super contango.” And it drove Unipec, the global trading arm of China’s oil and gas giant SINOPEC, to ramp up its use of an oil storage facility in the Caribbean Island of St. Croix run by Limetree Bay Terminals.