A small town in Oklahoma reveals world awash with oil

From the air above a small Oklahoma town, the 300 steel oil storage tanks that dot the landscape appear filled to the brim, their floating lids bobbing atop more than 65m barrels of oil.

There may be no better place to witness what a world awash in crude looks like, and the 23 sq km complex seems to bear out oil traders’ fears that the industry is running out of space to contain a historic supply glut that has hammered prices.

Such worries make weekly estimates of Cushing stockpiles from the US Energy Information Administration one of the hottest market indicators. These inventories peaked in mid-March and have edged lower since then.