ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Now, the contango - we're going to add this word to our vocabulary with the help of NPR's Jackie Northam. Surprisingly, this term is related to why gas prices are so low right now.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: There's a term for it when the price of oil is dropping because of oversupply but it's almost guaranteed to go back up in the future. Brenda Shaffer, an energy specialist at Georgetown University says this dynamic in commodities is something called a contango.
BRENDA SHAFFER: (Laughter) It almost sounds like a - you know, like a sort of a great oil dance or something.
NORTHAM: Shaffer says contango means the future's price of a commodity such as crude oil is higher than the current price. Shaffer says that sort of price gap is sparking the interest of oil speculators.
SHAFFER: Some people out there think that oil is going to get more expensive so it's worthwhile now to buy oil, lock it in and, you know, have those supplies - have them stored and have them available to sell a few months down the line if you actually believe the price is going to go up.
NORTHAM: Shaffer says the last time this happened was in 2009 after the price of crude oil plummeted to about $35 a barrel. At least 70 million barrels were stored on tankers until the price went up. Crude oil is now selling for less than $50 a barrel, but it's likely to go up again. In the meantime, international traders are storing all that oil they're buying on tankers, anchoring them and waiting it out. Basil Karatzas, a ship broker and adviser, says the tanker market is very active right now.
BASIL KARATZAS: Especially takers for crude oil and particularly for very large crude oil carriers - the supertankers for transporting 2 million barrels of oil each time.
NORTHAM: Karatzas says it costs about $15 million a year to store the crude oil on one oil tanker. Only a few international traders have the heft to buy and sit on this much oil - companies such as Vitol and Trafigura. Karatzas says he's inundated with calls from investors who want to take advantage of the contango and buy and store oil. Karatzas says it's not so easy to do.
KARATZAS: You have to have a special license. You have to be a registered trader with oil producers like Saudi Arabia. If you are just a financial institution, you cannot just show up at Saudi Arabia and tell them I want to buy a million barrels of oil because I want to speculate. They will not sell it to you.
NORTHAM: Ken Medlock, senior director of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University, says oil companies and countries are also taking advantage of the soft market. U.S. companies store in huge tanks onshore. Medlock says oil producers such as Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, are also looking further afield.
KEN MEDLOCK: Of course the Saudi's have been very active themselves in developing storage capabilities. You know, there was an announcement a few months back of an expansion in storage capability in Asia, so they've been sort of playing into this as well.
NORTHAM: Medlock says the risk for traders is that the price could keep dropping.
MEDLOCK: Then the oil you're holding on to that you've been hoping to sell forward - if you haven't fully contracted that up, you're going to sell at a loss.
NORTHAM: Medlock says trading in international oil is not for the fainthearted. But if the market works in their favor, the payoff for storing up millions of barrels of oil is huge. Jackie Northam, NPR News, Washington.