Financial Times: Record US Oil Sale Eases Global Supply Picture

“The US on Friday raised billions of dollars by selling the biggest ever amount of oil from its strategic petroleum reserve to 15 companies including investment banks, trading houses, oil majors, and refiners. The sale, which followed the decision by western countries to release emergency stocks, was ‘substantially oversubscribed’, the Department of Energy said, underscoring the tight market for light, sweet crude. . . . This has led to speculation that some of the oil will end up stored as commercial stocks, rather than turned into fuels, after release into the market. Poten & Partners, a tanker broker, said inquiries to use tankers as so-called ‘floating storage’ in the Gulf had picked up in recent days.”