Crude oil stocks soared in the past week at the Cushing oil hub in northern Oklahoma more than doubling in one day according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
While fighting expanded in the war between Russia and Ukraine and prices soared over concerns about supplies, the amount of crude at the Cushing hub jumped form 22.8 million barrels on February 25 to 48.3 million as of February 26.
The EIA said Cushing’s storage had totaled 30.5 million on January 28 and 33.5 million on January 14.
The hub has a reported working capacity of 76 million barrels and 91 million barrels total shell capacity as of the fall of 2019. But more storage tanks could have been constructed since then.
The Cushing hub is considered to be the heart of the global pricing network. It provides the physical delivery mechanism for the CME Group’s NYMEX WTI futures contract.
As of the fall of 2020, the Cushing pipeline infrastructure had the reported ability to deliver 3.7 million barrels a day to the hub and another 3 million barrels a day of outflow capacity. Crude oil to Cushing comes from Canada and U.S. shale oil areas including the Permian Basin, Niobrara and the Bakken.
Its outbound pipelines carry crude oil to refineries in the gulf coast and the Midwest.