It's way more complicated than "the price of oil hit $0". An option was due, and the holder of the option needed to accept delivery. Because most people who tr

It's way more complicated than "the price of oil hit $0". An option was due, and the holder of the option needed to accept delivery. Because most people who trade in options don't actually want the underlying asset, it was just some trader with no interest in actually owning "oil". It's like if you had barrels of crude oil in your basement; you'd probably let someone pick it up for free too. But likewise, if you had barrels of crude oil in your basement, then yes you could just let it sit there and never burn it. The trouble is that most people with the ability to accept delivery of industrial quantities of crude oil also want to use it. Also the price rarely dips that low, because the people extracting it do so in order to make money.