U.S. commercial crude oil stocks last week hit their highest level since 1931 – when the opening of giant oil fields in the United States coincided with the Great Depression to create an enormous glut and sent prices tumbling to just 13 cents per barrel. Commercial crude stocks at refineries and tank farms across the country rose to almost 407 million barrels on Jan 23, up from 398 million the week before, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) ( http://link.reuters.com/jax83w ). Commercial stocks were the highest since the agency started collecting weekly data in 1982. The parallels are not exact because production and consumption are so much higher now than in the 1930s. In 1931, stocks of 407 million barrels were equivalent to 160 days of nationwide production, while […]