Yes, I thought there was supposed to be 'an ocean of oil' waiting to dock...

Truth is it probably represents something like 2 days supply...

Nick.

And those tankers are waiting for a few more $/barrel to make this expensive form of storage really pay for itself. It's looking like they'll probably get it.

Not judging from how low the Baltic tanker indexes have cratered. See Capital Link Shipping for charts with free registration.

Probably jokuhl. Last time I saw the numbers it was costing $1/bbl/month to keep the oil afloat. So write another $2 million check this month and maybe make an extra $6 million or more next month. Just another high stakes game of chicken.

If/when the economy turns around the price of oil will rise if demand increases - but at the moment it looks like a good bit of world production is just going into non-productive storage.

If storage gets to full capacity before any economic recovery then oil demand will suddenly fall some more - and so will the price if people like OPEC can't afford to drop production yet more.

So, which happens first, full oil tanks, depletion/curtailing of existing production, or economic recovery?