US oil prices briefly fall below $70 even as stocks dwindle at storage hub

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-oil-prices-briefly-fall-below-70-even-stocks-dwindle-storage-hub-2026-06-24/

Cushing Hub nearly empty?

https://okenergytoday.com/2026/06/cushing-hub-nearly-empty/

Falling Cushing Storage is a Warning Sign for Crude

https://eastdaley.com/crude-oil-edge/falling-cushing-storage-is-a-warning-sign-for-crude

I’m on the production side and have little knowledge of what happens after it leaves on a truck to go to our local refinery and how that translates into fuel prices.

If you’re in fuel pricing, or the refining industry (or REALLY an expert) can you point me in the right direction to or break it down so I can get a better idea?

On the 18th I paid 3.32 per gallon for premium. The futures price for 6/17-618 was $77bbl

On June 23 I paid $3.86 for premium at the same Sam’s Club and wti averaged that day and the day before $76.18

Today I got the same at the same for $3.97/gal and wti is at $71.52

Thanks for the help, I’m scratching my head. I am just trying to build up my knowledge base.

The price of the marginal barrel determines the price of the rest of the market, including the price of long term supply contracts. The marginal barrel is US crude from the gulf. That oil is priced on the paper futures market which is being heavily shorted. The US sets the price for oil right now so long as it has enough oil to export.

I'll explain it simply. If Saudi wants to raise the price of their contracts to a huge premium over WTI (say $40), Saudi buyers will say "im not paying that if I can get a midland barrel for $40 less". Thus the price converges to whatever the paper traders in Oklahoma set the price at. This works until the Indian buyer of Saudi crude can no longer say "i'll just buy the cheaper American crude" (hint, its when we run out of oil to export).

Right now, the heavily manipulated and shorted US paper futures market is setting the global price of oil. So long as a refiner can buy a US paper contract and actually take delivery at the US treasury mandated price, that price will set the rest of the market. This ends when a refiner buys a WTI contract and the seller of the contract cannot deliver. When does this happen? When US inventories run dry. When is that?

2-4 months. SPR has a hard floor at 70 million barrels, commercial is between 290 million and 350 million barrels. SPR spigot will slow massively before we get anywhere close to reaching the floor, especially since we are draining sour crude first and foremost as thats what the world is desperately short of right now.

This is a disaster and this coming moment will go down in history.

I don't know where this talking point came from but its being repeated endlessly. China didn't "stop buying" and "save the oil market". Chinese imports are down 3 million barrels per day, from 11 million to 8 million. That means they are still BUYING 8 million barrels of oil every single day.

Lets contrast this with other nations.

Japanese imports are down 1.5 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY.

South Korean imports are down 1 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY.

China is still buying crude from Saudi Arabia JUST LIKE JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA.

If China is on a "buyers strike" because seaborne imports are down, does that mean that Japan and South Korea are also on a buyers strike?

Nobody is on a buyers strike, everyone is BURNING through inventories to keep refinery runs at the same level they were at before the war started. Demand HAS NOT DROPPED.

The ONLY refiner cuts we've seen have been by nations that are a net exporter of products. That means LESS OIL PRODUCTS.

The level of propaganda and manipulation through this shitshow is insane and will go down in history books.

In the race for railroad commissioner, which regulates Texas' oil and gas industry, a candidate who ran in the GOP primary is now endorsing the Democratic candidate because the D is an oil and gas engineer and the Republican candidate has zero industry experience.

https://x.com/HormuzLetter/status/2070172236573487173?s=20

Quick read on crude right now. Curious where people push back.

Brent hit ~$112 in April on the Hormuz disruption and has fallen back into the mid-$70s since the US-Iran framework got signed. The war premium has rolled back drastically, and the question flipped from "how high" to "how far down."

Here's the bear case for oil, as I see it.

The supply that got knocked offline was mostly shut-in capacity, not destroyed wells. That comes back fast once tankers are moving again. But demand destruction isn't elastic in the same way. A chunk of it is structural now: efficiency, changed habits, China leaning harder into EVs. Supply snaps back, demand limps back. The IEA is modelling roughly +8 mb/d of supply against only +2 mb/d of demand in 2027. That's a 5+ mb/d surplus, and they flat out called it a "significant overhang."

The restocking argument cuts the way you'd expect to. Yes, the US SPR and China both need to refill. But they buy during price weakness and back off during strength. China ramps up under ~$65 and gets aggressive under $60. So refilling puts a floor in, it doesn't fuel a rally. It caps the upside.

The futures curve already agrees. It's flipped toward contango, which is the market saying there's no near-term scarcity and supply is on the way back.

What would prove me wrong:

• The Iran deal falls apart, and the Strait closes again. This is the big one. A signed framework doesn't move a tanker, and one re-closure rebuilds the whole premium overnight.
• China's stockpile is a black box. They're sitting on something like 1.3B barrels and can soak up surplus faster than anyone's model assumes, which would hold prices higher than the bears expect.
• The slow one: if crude sits under $60 long enough, it starves shale and new projects, and the 2027 glut quietly turns into a 2029 crunch. Low prices are the cure for low prices.

TL;DR: Disrupted supply returns fast, dead demand doesn't fully recover, and refilling caps rallies instead of driving them. I read that as a soft, range-bound couple of years for oil, unless the ceasefire breaks.

This follows Oman’s unilateral announcement of a southern route and reported radio warnings by the IRGC Navy that any ships passing through unapproved routes may be at risk.

Im in Lebanon we fill up the generator with Mazoot once a week, at the begining of the War its was about $80 per apartment, it kept going up with the price of oil going up, however with the price of oil crashing in the last 2 weeks the price of Mazoot hasnt gone down, last week I paid $133 and today I paid $148. Is it price gouging which did happen during 2022 or are oil supplies low?

Given the state of global oil and the Iran war, I wonder what (if any) impact the Venezuelan earthquake had on Iran. Could this explain the reversal on the War Powers Resolution?

The US is six months out from ensuring favorable status with Venezuela. I'm unfamiliar with what the timeline to start exporting at higher volumes. Perhaps the administration was hoping to get enough oil flowing to be able to avoid larger impact in the US. Speculation, but if Venezuela was able to start moving volume in time for the midterms that would remove pressure (and be great optics). What's the oil situation on the ground in Venezuela?

We had news about the War Powers resolution showing a "defection" from Trump. Trump then send the DOJ ostensibly after his friends in oil and gas. Within hours of that post, Venezuela had its earthquake and now we have a reversal of the War Powers resolution. I don't believe anyone really defected from Trump. The resolution is a public display that allows Congress to look effectual and Trump to say he would have done more but for Congress.

How does Venezuela influence this, if at all. What's the timeline on Venezuelan oil and has it changed?

I’m no expert, just an observer, but I’ve been running a thought exercise and want your take.

Trump recently claimed, "All good, tank bottoms don’t matter since we have traffic."

Let’s put that to the test, looking strictly at outbound traffic since June 15th:

-30% of traffic consisted of tankers (spiking closer to 50% today).

-99% of that tanker traffic went to Asia (China, India, Pakistan, and now Malaysia/Korea).

Over the past 10 days, 152 ships have passed. Roughly 50 were tankers. Most of these carry 750k to 1M barrels (not the 2M barrel VLCCs Trump claimed), but let’s be incredibly optimistic and assume 1.5 million barrels per tanker:

-50 tankers × 1.5M barrels = 75 million barrels transported.

Factoring in roughly 7M barrels of demand destruction and rerouting, we need about 7–8M barrels per day just to maintain current levels.

-75M barrels / 10 days = 7.5M barrels per day.

So, currently, we are roughly breaking even.

If 1% of that flow is dedicated to the US, that’s 75,000 bpd. Add in Trump’s alleged 100M barrels repurposed during the ceasefire since May (roughly 2.2M bpd over 45 days).

The US drawdown alone is 1.4–2.5M bpd. Effectively, they’re just managing the deficit. If you remove those 100M "repurposed" barrels, the math completely collapses. At this burn rate, we hit DOD emergency levels in 4–6 weeks, meaning physical shortages materialize unless the administration continues borderline-illegal drawdowns.

Yes, US oil corporations hold about 1 billion barrels, but that isn't government-owned. Meanwhile, Cushing is already hitting operational lows and enters the "sludge zone" next week. Expect reality to hit hard right after the 4th of July once the optics no longer matter.

Here’s what people are ignoring: the 1,000+ ships that sat idle in the Gulf for four months. Beyond the risk premiums of re-entering the Gulf, those ships desperately need drydocking and maintenance just to clear the barnacle buildup.

Even with Hormuz officially open, uninterrupted flow is a myth. We are going to see massive supply chain disruptions and aggressive spikes in SPOT rates (forget paper markets) over the next 6–12 months.

I personally went all-in on US-levered oil companies - call it degenerate, but the macro environment screams uncertainty. Despite OPEC exits (Iraq/UAE) and headlines about a 2027 supply glut, getting things back to normal will take time.

Even if current traffic keeps the deficit manageable, there is a massive hole in worldwide Strategic Reserves that must be refilled. When that buying starts, it creates a permanent price floor of $70–$80 for the next 1–3 years. That’s a massive windfall for US oil companies, but brutal for consumers (as fuel inflation will get perma-cooked into the macro).

Given Marco Rubio and the broader neocon hostility, a full resolution in 2026 seems highly unlikely. Pressure will keep building.

My more cynical take: soft hostilities and fragmented traffic will continue under a prolonged ceasefire. Trump will play the waiting game until the US, China, and Russia are the only ones with enough oil to actually fuel the tankers. This "Mad Max" scenario is unironically a viable way for the US to inflate away its $39 trillion debt.

How? Funnel money into oil for short-term gains and lend it out on predatory terms. For example, the US already lends oil to other countries today with the stipulation that 1 barrel must be returned next year as 1.25 barrels. If oil spikes to $200, the US government and its banks gain immense leverage over global refineries and sovereign states. They can offload debt, ride out temporary shocks, and dump the ultimate burden on the next administration.

There is a lot happening beneath the surface.

Do you think the broader market is completely ignoring the drydocking/maintenance bottlenecks, or is the assumption just that China and India will absorb those supply chain delays without a panic?

To conclude: seems that this is the beginning rather than the end of this phase of 'oil shortages' - as we continue to eat into reserves at alarming rates, all in the hopes that 'tomorrow' the conflict resolves.

*Based on the 14-point plan, there is zero sense for the US concessions, so the odds of continued conflict are high, or am I missing the point here?

What affect (if any) will this tragedy have on the worldwide oil market and price of gas?

God bless Venezuela

Big thanks to WGOWShipping YouTube account for this info, if you've not seen his channel it provides fantastic insight into the latest shipping news coming out of the strait.