In nearly 15 months, the massive amount of oil stored at the Cushing hub has plummeted an estimated 60 percent, easing a bottleneck that in 2017 slowed the transportation of Midwest oil to terminals on the Gulf Coast.
As Jack Money at the Oklahoman reported, expansion efforts have eased the storage problem at Cushing, going from an all-time high of 69.4 million barrels stored in April 2017 down to about 23 million this month. That’s a drop of more than 60 percent.
The drop in storage occurred as prices increased in the past year. One expert explained the high amount of oil was put into storage because of the previously low prices.
The storage hub has also increased in size. One example was the construction of an additional 12-tanks by the Canadian-based midstream company Keyera. The additional tanks will add 4.5 million barrels of storage to the overall Cushing terminal. The project will also nearly double the size of the terminal since 2008 when storage capacity was only 49 million barrels of oil.