Lots of interest in February $30 contracts on the NYMEX:

Oil traders made their biggest bet yet that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will fail to prevent crude prices from plunging below $30 a barrel.

The February $30 put contract went for 45 cents, or $450 per contract, at 2:16 p.m. New York time, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s up 25 cents from yesterday. The contract was the day’s most active after December $55 puts, which dropped as futures prices rallied.

Insurers are probably breathing a sigh of relief, as cheap gasoline makes it less likely that lessees will seek to have their Hummer H2s disappear or be torched under mysterious circumstances. However, there exists the prospect that we’ll end up with cheap gasoline just in time to drive to those jobs that we’ll all no longer have.