Saudi Arabia may have started to fill up its oil tanks, export and domestic consumption data suggests, as cited by Bloomberg’s Julian Lee. Traditionally, the summer months are the season of peak local consumption of crude, Lee notes, as air conditioning demand hits a high. However, this year temperatures have been below the five-year average for the period, and exports have not registered any marked increases, either. Saudi Arabia has abundant storage capacity and over the last three years, stockpiles have been falling, from more than 300 million barrels to less than 250 million barrels, according to data from JODI quoted by Lee. At the end of April this year, they stood at the lowest level since 2011, but in May they went up for the first time since last November. They may well have continued to rise in the following months as well. At the same time, Reuters […]