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Where Has All The Oil Gone?
From Wall Street Journal, dunno how long the free linky will last:
Since summer, one of North America's most important oil towns has witnessed a disappearing act. The mammoth storage tanks that blanket the rolling grasslands around this remote prairie town had been filled to the brim with crude oil. They aren't anymore. Since May, millions of barrels of crude have been sold off, and Cushing's inventory has fallen by nearly 35%.

Oil traders around the globe obsess about inventory. Storage levels have fallen, not just in Cushing, but in other oil depots as well. Fearful that the U.S. cushion of spare fuel could hit a low by year-end, traders drove prices to a record of nearly $84 a barrel last month. On Friday, oil closed at $81.22 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 33% this year.

The reasons Cushing's crude has been disappearing are surprisingly complex, and shed light on the growing involvement of speculators in the global oil market. Tanks are emptying partly because producers have been straining to keep up with demand. But investment banks and other financial firms also played a part by abruptly shifting their oil-trading strategies this summer. Even the credit crunch sparked by the subprime mortgage fiasco had an effect.
Posted by: Seafarious 2007-10-08
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=201706