Oil Supply Shock Worsens amid Plunging Petroleum Inventories

Global crude oil and fuel inventories are crashing at a record speed as the supply shock from the Middle East is too big to absorb without stock depletion. While the futures markets trade on sentiment and hopes that a U.S.-Iran deal could soon lead to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the actual physical disruption is enormous. It has already erased the oversupply that the market faced at the start of the Iran war. The initial buffers are gone, and now commercial inventories are depleting so fast that even an imminent reopening of the Strait…