Oil imports are up 20% vs this time last year
The WSJ has looked into why US oil imports are higher than they've been in years.
One of the reasons they say, is increased imports due to market disruptions. The other is that the rest of the world is running out of places to store it.
114 million barrels came into the US for storage between last May and this Feb, +30% from the year before.
Storage is becoming sparse around the world and the US is one of the only places still with a decent amount of storage capacity. They report that the US is about two thrids full and can take in another 100m barrels.
Speculative traders are behind most of the storing as they can still sell for higher prices in forward futures than it costs to store it. Land based storage is the cheapest but that isn't stopping some 28m barrels from being stored in tankers off the gulf coast.
Amazingly, another reason for the jump imports is that apparently it's cheaper to import from another country via ships than it is to get oil delivered by train from within the US.
There's always lots of conjecture over how much storage space is still available, and it can be increased fairly quickly but at the rate folks keep filling it, it might all come to a head at some point unless demand increases and/or production slows.
There's much more from the WSJ here. It's gated but worth a read of you can.
Here's a funky gif showing the rise of US imports
Fancy storing some oil for $0.30-0.85 per barrel per month?
Get a boat and you can charge a buck.
