ONE YEAR ON

Alex Booth from Kpler looks at how global crude storage levels are adjusting to a post COVID-19 environment the rapid build-up of crude oil-on-water and the subsequent transition to onshore inventories through the second quarter of 2020 has been well covered, including in a previous article for this publication (see p42 in August/September 2020) Since peaking in early July at 3.77 billion bbl, onshore inventories drew by 770,000 bpd through the second half of the year, hitting 3.64 billion bbl by the end of December 2020. Since that point, global inventories as tracked by Kpler have moved largely sideways. Data to the end of March puts onshore tracked inventories at 3.64 billion bbl, just 5 million bbl lower after a period of three months. ONSHORE CRUDE FLATLINING In total, onshore oil storage remains 200 million bbl over levels going into 2021 amid the fact that OECD oil demand is still estimated to be down 10% year-on-year (y/y) while non-OECD demand is still down around 2% y/y. Crude oil-on-water also increased through December 2020 as imports into China were cut at year end. The metric remained stable through January and February 2021 before retreating again through March....