The EIA suggests there was a spec issue, here…
”Light, sweet crude oil prices in the Midland hub, the area where crude oil produced from the Permian region is traded, developed a rare and significant discount to light, sour crude oil prices in the region in April. The five-day moving average of the differential between WTI Midland and West Texas Sour (WTS) crude oil prices neared a four-year low of -$1.54/b on April 4, 2019. The spread increased $1.65/b since then to settle at 11 cents/b on May 2 (Figure 4). Trade press reports from Reuters indicate that new WTI Midland production has been lighter than the WTI Cushing specifications, which may have been reflected in the discount. The price spread reached 42 cents/b in the last week of April, near the 2018 average premium of 47 cents/b, likely because producers and marketers began offering a separate stream of higher API gravity crude oil, called West Texas Light, for delivery. This segregation appears to have successfully amended the specification problems with WTI Midland spot deliveries.”
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