In April, the pandemic sent theย oil market into one of its most precipitous crashes in history, with the oil price going briefly negative for the first time ever. The price is still around 30% lower than it was before Covid-19 emerged, but it managed to bounce back fairly quickly after producers around the world curbed millions of barrels of production.
Over the last few weeks, though, that progress has stalled. The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, has been stuck around $40 per barrel for about a month now.