UPDATE 10-U.S. oil plunges 25%, Brent falls below $20 a barrel

* U.S. Oil Fund to exit June futures
* China's ICBC suspends open positions for commodities
* Crude in U.S. storage near record high

(Updates with settlement prices, adds commentary)
By Stephanie Kelly
NEW YORK, April 27 (Reuters) - Brent crude fell below $20 a
barrel and U.S. crude plunged 25% on Monday, driven lower by
skittish investors fleeing the U.S. benchmark due to lack of
available storage to deal with a coronavirus-induced collapse in
demand.
Even as governments worldwide are taking tentative steps
towards reducing restriction on movement to help economies
rebound, fuel demand remains weak.
Fuel demand is down 30% globally, and storage is becoming
precious, with roughly 85% of worldwide onshore storage full as
of last week, according to Kpler data.
Economic concerns continue to plague the market. Global
economic output is expected to contract by 2% this year - worse
than the financial crisis - while demand has collapsed by 30%
because of the pandemic.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures (WTI) CLc1 fell
$4.16, or 24.6%, to settle at $12.78 a barrel. Brent crude
LCOc1 slid $1.45, or 6.8%, to settle at $19.99 a barrel.
Traders also said the crude contract is down in part because
retail investment vehicles like exchange-traded funds are
shifting their investments away from front month June contracts
to avoid getting trapped as many did a week ago, when the oil
contract dropped to minus $37.63 a barrel.
Oil futures ended their third straight week of losses last
week with a 24% drop for Brent and a 7% slide for WTI. The
markets have fallen for eight of the past nine weeks.
After last week's losses, the United States Oil Fund LP
USO.P , the largest oil exchange product, said it would further
shift its holdings into later-dated contracts, selling all of
its holdings in the June contract.
That fund was hit hard last week after the May contract
lapsed into negative territory just before its expiry. USO at
the time did not hold any May contracts.
As of Friday, the fund held nearly 14,000 NYMEX June
contracts, roughly 4% of the current open interest in the June
contract. In the last several days the fund has sold a sizeable
part of its June position; in Monday's announcement, it said it
will sell the rest of its June holdings by Thursday.
"The USO filing undermines confidence in the oil market for
June, and it has sunk prices today," said Cailin Birch, global
economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit. "However, it
doesn't change the economic outlook for June, which was always
going to be difficult.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)
<601398.SS 1398.HK> said it will suspend all open positions for
retail investor products linked to commodities futures,
including crude oil, natural gas, copper and soybeans, from
Tuesday. Crude oil stockpiles at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery hub
for WTI rose over 6% in the week to April 24 to around 65
million barrels, market participants said, citing a Monday
report from Genscape. However, inventories only increased 0.5%
from Tuesday through Friday.
"Inputs in Cushing have slowed a bit, which either signals
they're finding alternative places to put the oil or a major
drop in production," said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at
Price Futures Group.

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CHART: Brent oil may test support at $20 Cushing crude stockpiles surge https://reut.rs/2XViQxO
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