US May Run Out Of Oil Storage Space As Soon As June
On Sunday, we noted that the economics of the floating storage play could spell further declines for crude prices. With a global stock increase that’s some 3 times larger than that which occurred during the last period of oversupply, expect cheap, on-land storage to prove inadequate necessitating the use of VLCCs. According to Soc Gen, determining how far the front end of the curve would have to fall in order for traders to arbitrage the difference between buying and storing physical oil and selling paper forward is a good indicator for where prices may find a floor:
…the bank is looking for the front end of the curve to fall until the contango is wide enough to make the floating storage play enticing.The example Soc Gen uses shows that Brent needs to see ~$49 before the trade is sufficiently profitable.
The takeaway, we noted, is that storage availability and contango should be taken into account when considering the future direction of oil prices. With production still climbing despite the decline in rig count, it seems supply may, in short order, outstrip storage capacity for as the following two charts show, crude storage capacity in the US is now at 60% and is set to be completely exhausted by June:
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