{"id":743139,"date":"2026-06-17T22:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T22:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/743139\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T22:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T22:06:09","slug":"critical-oil-storage-hubs-hit-decades-low-levels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/743139\/","title":{"rendered":"Critical oil storage hubs hit decades-low levels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crude oil stockpiles across the country continued to plunge this week, as the Trump administration tapped America\u2019s backup supply of energy products to help keep gas prices down while the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut to vessel traffic.<\/p>\n

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The draining of these stockpiles has caused the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, located in Louisiana and Texas, to fall to its lowest level since 1983, according to Energy Dept. data issued Monday. <\/p>\n

Inventories held at a second critical oil hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, tumbled to just 20 million barrels, according to data released Wednesday by the Energy Information Administration. That brings the country\u2019s largest commercial storage facility to an \u201coperational stress\u201d level, according to Rory Johnston of the research firm Commodity Context. <\/p>\n

\u201cWithout any immediate relief on the horizon,\u201d this is a \u201cconcerning pressure point,\u201d Johnston said. <\/p>\n

Throughout the Iran war, U.S. oil refineries have been processing petroleum and selling it on the open market. But it\u2019s not enough to make up for the lack of Persian Gulf supply.<\/p>\n

Last week, domestic refineries ran \u201cat 96.7% of their operable capacity,\u201d the EIA said in a report. Yet still, the reserves dwindled. <\/p>\n

During the second week of June, commercial stockpiles of crude oil fell 8.3 million barrels, while another 8.9 million barrels were drained from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It was the tenth straight week of declining U.S. reserves.<\/p>\n

Mixed messages from Trump<\/p>\n

On Sunday, President Donald Trump and Iran announced that a peace deal had been agreed to. Trump quickly said the critical Strait of Hormuz would reopen to maritime traffic \u201cimmediately after\u201d the deal was signed on Monday. <\/p>\n

When that didn\u2019t happen, Trump said the strait would open \u201cupon the signing of the Deal on Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of Wednesday, the strait, through which more than 20% of the world\u2019s energy supplies passed before the war started, remained at a near standstill. <\/p>\n

No text of a peace deal has been released by either Washington or Tehran. Even if an agreement is finalized, shipping companies say it could take weeks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.<\/a><\/p>\n

Both the anticipation of a deal and Trump\u2019s announcement Sunday helped push global oil prices sharply lower. <\/p>\n

Retail gas prices in the U.S. have fallen, as well. By the middle of the week, the average nationwide price per gallon of unleaded gas was just above $4.00, down more than 50 cents off its peak.<\/p>\n

But whether this week\u2019s lower oil prices stay that way is far from guaranteed. Already, crude oil prices spiked higher by 1% Wednesday after the data on U.S. petroleum stockpiles was released.<\/p>\n

A looming price spike <\/p>\n

So far, supplies of oil from America\u2019s strategic reserves have helped to keep gas prices lower than they would have otherwise been if the supply had not been tapped. <\/p>\n

But as this week\u2019s data makes clear, this cannot continue indefinitely. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the real question, is \u2018How much longer can these measures kind of ameliorate the risk?\u2019\u201d Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said on Friday. \u201cAt some point, they may not be able to,\u201d he told Bloomberg. <\/p>\n

Asked when he thought that might be, Wirth replied that it was \u201cprobably\u201d in a July or August timeframe. <\/p>\n

Exxon Mobil senior vice president Neil Chapman was clear about what would happen if levels fell too far. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you get to that point, then you\u2019ll see [the] price shoot up,\u201d he told a Bernstein investment conference last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crude oil stockpiles across the country continued to plunge this week, as the Trump administration tapped America\u2019s backup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":743140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-743139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/743140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}