If you can't make physical delivery on a commodity futures contract, is it a legitimate contract?

It is next to impossible to make physical delivery of crude oil on the NYMEX crude oil futures contract. Impracticability may fall into the legal category of "incapable of being performed." and, thus, is not a binding contract.|||Just cause you can't do it doesn't mean it can't be done. Professional traders and true hedgers are more than capable of making or taking delivery.|||Why is it impossible?





You can make physical delivery by buying a contract from somebody that physically holds the commodity.





What you are talking about is writing a contract "naked", without owning the commodity. Are you writing contracts?





With shorting stocks, it is illegal but had been unenforced to some extent to short a stock without the stock being available to be shorted.





I can't say about commodities. I recall they were thinking about a "market" where it was all speculation without requiring the asset. But I didn't think they were doing that yet.