French Oil Refining Strike Fills Europe Trading Hub With Crude No empty tanks left in Rotterdam as oil diverted from France Swelling stockpiles add to signs of short-term supply surplus Europe’s oil-trading hub is fast filling up with what may be record amounts of crude and strikes in nearby France are to blame. Crude inventories in an area known by oil traders as ARA — Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp — jumped by more than 3.5 million barrels to 65.635 million barrels in the week ended June 17, according to data from Genscape Inc. That’s the most since the company began monitoring in 2013 and the supplies occupied 73 percent of available space. Stockpiles of oil in all of the Netherlands and Belgium haven’t exceeded 65 million barrels for at least 11 years, International Energy Agency data compiled by Bloomberg show. While there’s growing consensus among oil traders and analysts […]