A glut of stored oil that helped keep prices low for years is almost gone, thanks to production cuts by OPEC and Russia, a humming global economy and a series of small but meaningful supply disruptions. Excess inventories of stored oil by the world’s industrialized economies are now at their lowest level in more than three years, based on a five-year running average, according to data released Thursday by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries . After months of steepening declines, the cartel said commercial inventory levels shrunk a further 17.4 million barrels in February, to about 2.85 billion barrels. That represents a surplus of just 43 million barrels, based on the five-year average. Two years ago, the storage surplus hit 400 million barrels. The drain on storage is partly a consequence of a concerted effort by Saudi Arabia, its OPEC colleagues, and Russia, to throttle back output […]