Commercial crude oil inventories grew by another large margin last week. FuelFix.com reports stores of crude grew by 10.3 million barrels in the week ending Feb. 27, citing a weekly report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The gain far surpassed the forecast build of 3.9 million barrels, according to a survey of eight analysts compiled by Bloomberg.
Storage data has been closely watched for the past months as traders have looked for signs that the oil market is beginning to balance record crude production with growing demand. A flood of oil from producers across the globe triggered a collapse in prices this summer, but in February markets saw their first monthly gain as demand for oil began to accelerate.
But even as prices have stabilized, several large builds in crude oil inventories have loomed over U.S. markets. As of this week, the EIA estimates that crude stores are at a modern-era high of 444.4 million barrels.
Stocks of crude at the nation’s oil trading hub of Cushing, Oklahoma, now stand at about 49.2 million barrels, or at more than 65% of a roughly 70 million barrels total capacity.
Nationwide, the country’s roughly 521 million barrels of crude storage tanks are about 60% full, according to a separate analysis also released today by the EIA. Those figures don’t include the crude storage available in pipelines, in storage adjacent to oil wells and in transit on tankers.
As crude has risen toward the tops of tanks across the U.S., traders have priced in the rising storage costs—and the possibility that oil flowing from wells could become stranded as empty space becomes harder to find.
