(By Bloomberg, March 13, 2020) -- Oil posted the biggest weekly plunge since 2008, capping its most dramatic week in recent memory as major producers prepare to drench the market with supply just as the coronavirus crushes demand. But prices jumped following the close, after President Donald Trump said the U.S. would fill the nation’s strategic reserve.

Losses for the week totaled 23% after the collapse of talks between members of the OPEC+ group triggered the biggest crash in a generation. Instead of reaching a deal to cut output to mitigate the fallout from the virus, producers led by Saudi Arabia and Russia embarked on a war for market share and pledged to pump more.

Crude has also been roiled by turmoil across global markets, with investors uncertain if efforts by policy makers worldwide will be enough to tackle the economic impact of the spreading coronavirus. Apart from battering economies who are dependent on energy revenue, oil’s collapse is also hitting U.S. shale producers by forcing them to cut spending and dividends. The threat of lower driving demand sent gasoline futures to their worst week ever.

“We’ve never seen a market quite like this,” said Andrew Lebow, senior partner at Commodity Research Group. “It’s not like oil has never seen a crash before but to have both a supply and demand shock, this is one for the books.”

The unprecedented combination of concurrent supply and demand crises has pushed oil volatility to levels higher than in the 2008 financial crisis. Gasoline prices were also rattled, falling by a fifth on Thursday as U.S. President Donald Trump issued a travel ban from Europe as part of an effort to contain the spread of the virus.

                                                                                        From Rigzone