Rising U.S. oil production, coupled with the Permian pipeline capacity constraints, are set to lead to a build-up in Cushing, Oklahoma, inventories that will put further pressure on the benchmark U.S. oil price, widening its discount to Brent Crude to as much as $15 a barrel —which would be the widest WTI discount to the international benchmark since December 2013, according to Citigroup. “As U.S. production grows, the likelihood is overwhelming that a lot of the valves to get into the Gulf Coast are going to close,” Ed Morse, global head of commodities research at Citigroup, told Bloomberg in a recent interview. Before the planned pipelines in the Permian enter into service by the fourth quarter of 2019, the inventories at Cushing could rise to 70 million barrels by April next year, compared to 20 million barrels in stockpiles now, according to Morse. While Permian oil is finding it […]