The tanks in Cushing, Oklahoma, are hitting bottom

6/12/2026 at 7:16:15 PM

For anyone else out there that looked at the picture and their first thought was "are those tanks open to the rain?" thinking they were just open cylinders

seems it's called a floating roof tank :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_floating_roof_tank

And it prevents vapor loss or needing vapor overhead as the roof floats directly on the surface. Rain/snow water is pumped out off the top of the roof as needed.

by ticulatedspline

6/12/2026 at 5:37:06 PM

TLDR: due to the conflict in the Middle East, the U.S. is exporting most of the oil that used to fill these tanks. If the conflict ends, or the U.S. stops exporting the oil, the tanks will fill up again, but in the case of the latter there are unpleasant political ramifications for Trump and his supporters so they'd rather see 100% inflation instead.

by gamblor956

6/12/2026 at 8:12:58 PM

>If the conflict ends, or the U.S. stops exporting the oil, the tanks will fill up again...

Not quite. Once the conflict ends, there will a lag of several months before the tanks will start filling up again. So even if it ends tomorrow, we may still have to ban oil exports for some time. I don't think there are any political ramifications for Trump---he has complete control over what used to be the Republican Party, and banning exports would probably actually help him with undecideds. But he will get heat from his sponsors and handlers in the oil industry. Policy-wise, Trump is a blank sheet of paper, continuously filled in by anyone in a position of power who flatters or bribes him. And the oil industry has been a major patron for him.

by vannevar

6/12/2026 at 8:58:43 PM

> Once the conflict ends, there will a lag of several months before the tanks will start filling up again.

This is what most people seem to be missing. A price spike is pretty much inevitable @ this point. Regardless of Iran-US deal or not.

How high the spike(s)? How long? How elastic is world's demand in near-future, as prices spike? We'll find out.

by RetroTechie

6/12/2026 at 9:33:16 PM

And as Trump says, "We'll make millions."

He doesn't mean you and I, of course, or the US as a whole. Hell, he barely means Big Oil. We, for Trump = "me, my family and my friends".

by FireBeyond

6/13/2026 at 6:06:48 PM

Yes, if you mean "fill up" as in full it will take a few months. These tanks are massive and there are a lot of them.

But it will only take a few days before the tanks start filling up again. A lot of oil runs through this facility: most of the U.S. production excluding the West Coast. They're only running dry right now because other countries are buying expensive U.S. oil on the spot market because they can't get the (cheaper) Middle East oil they already have long-term contracts for. Once the conflict ends, the only lag time for them to switch away from U.S. oil is the time it takes for the tankers to get to their destinations, which is measured in days and weeks, not months.

by gamblor956

6/14/2026 at 3:28:51 AM

>...which is measured in days and weeks, not months.

There are multiple issues that will force a lag of at least a couple of months. First, the issue of the mines that have been reported. Second, the tanker owners will want to be quite sure hostilities aren't going to erupt again. Third, while tankers that are trapped will leave, there will be a major lag while tankers that have been moved to other parts of the world get redirected back to the Strait to fill up. It will indeed be months before there is enough oil flowing to start retaining reserves again. It isn't like the state of shipping was frozen the day the war started and will unfreeze as soon as the ink is dry on the new cease-fire deal.

by vannevar

6/12/2026 at 2:46:37 PM

It's why Trump is pissing himself trying to get a deal. If the straight stays closed, everyone is fucked.

by sleepyguy

6/12/2026 at 4:40:43 PM

That's not going to help, price spikes are locked in at this point, even if we got a deal this minute. It would be marginaly better simply because it would improve sentiment.

by fyrn_

6/12/2026 at 4:38:05 PM

Gosh he's not behaving as if he wants to make a deal.

by subpixel

6/12/2026 at 11:06:25 PM

He does. He's just stuck in between his previous rethoric about the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) and his misreading of IRGC capabilities and will.

He can't take a worse deal than the Obama deal he spent years criticizing then personally destroyed, and the Iranians don't seem very inclined to give him anything better.

by Sabinus

6/12/2026 at 5:25:46 PM

He wants one.

He's just never really been good at it.

by ceejayoz

6/12/2026 at 5:34:40 PM

I have been reading that the deal basically includes almost everything Iran has been asking for. Perhaps, the folks around Trump understanding the cliff we are racing for are keeping Trump out of the loop and hope he will just sign something because the pain that is coming has the potential to force a ground war America is not prepared for.

by sleepyguy

6/12/2026 at 8:18:55 PM

Once Iran closed the Strait, Trump's surrender became inevitable. The rest has been a combination of him slowly coming to terms with the inevitability of that outcome, and buying time to come up with a way to spin the catastrophe as a success.

by vannevar

6/12/2026 at 9:18:28 PM

The only way to spin it as a success is to decouple the US from international news sources. Otherwise everyone will be aware that Iran is spinning it as an Iranian victory, and enough people will ask "well, who actually won?" and look at the actual results. And in that reckoning, Trump will have lost.

Unless... unless the government of Iran falls during the stalling. If they get no oil revenue... maybe? Could it happen?

by AnimalMuppet

6/12/2026 at 4:50:35 PM

Feels like every day for three months there's a piece about how tomorrow the price of gas is going $200/barrel. It never does though. Gas may just be a lot more elastic now than it was 50 years ago, or even 3 years ago. I have no idea, but I'll believe it when I see it.

by pkulak

6/12/2026 at 8:03:54 PM

I haven't seen any articles saying "tomorrow" oil is going to $200/barrel. I have seen lots of articles predicting that once the stocks run out, the price will go to $200/barrel. The articles differ on exactly when that will happen. But seems like it's closer now than it was a month ago. People who are downstream of a stock, and have never experienced that stock running out, will not believe that it can run out until they see it. In the past, someone has always come along and refilled it before it hit zero. Maybe some deus ex machina will arrive to refill it again. Hard to see what that will be this time, though.

by vannevar

6/12/2026 at 5:43:50 PM

It's a lot more interesting to actually look at the mechanisms, then just to play "I'll believe it when I see it." Right now there are huge drawdowns of storage capacity in the US and Europe and China. Those have finite lifespans, although China has a lot of storage (120 days at 2025 rates.) Also, Chinese refiners have stopped processing as much fuel. Lastly, there's been a big reduction in consumption of transport fuels (again, mostly in China). These have combined to reduce prices in the US and take China off the buying market, so we're seeing lower prices than you might expect.

But this stuff won't last forever. If the Hormuz blockage doesn't resolve, things will get bad. You're seeing a patient that's a little more resilient than we thought, but who is mostly being carried through by massive blood transfusions. This buys time, but does not heal the patient.

by matthewdgreen

6/12/2026 at 7:53:03 PM

> It's a lot more interesting to actually look at the mechanisms

Yes, and that's why I read TFA. And it was interesting. My point still stands, however, that every previous doom prediction has been wrong.

by pkulak

6/12/2026 at 8:35:45 PM

All of the predictions I see are of the type, “If nothing changes and reserves are depleted, prices will spike to very high levels.” We have yet to bottom out reserves, so yeah, prices have yet to hit record levels, but we are moving there day by day. There was a lot of slack oil in the system before this started, but it can only last so long.

by 0cf8612b2e1e

6/13/2026 at 1:53:42 AM

Well, the markets sure don't think so, and they are betting with their money, not words. WTI is about 80 bucks right now. Barely above average.

by pkulak

6/12/2026 at 6:13:25 PM

How is China reducing the consumption of transport fuels? Is that driven by changes in individuals' fuel consumption patterns or by a change on the industrial side?

by wilkommen

6/12/2026 at 8:30:06 PM

Another article from the other day contains this:

And even more importantly, China has slashed its crude imports, turning instead to massive stockpiles. (https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/09/business/oil-strait-of-hormuz...)

Sounds like they're burning through their reserves as well. But since China's economy is more centrally controlled, it's likely they keep bigger reserves.

by vannevar

6/12/2026 at 8:37:43 PM

China's agressive ramp-up of EVs has progressed to where it causes a noteable dent in gasoline demand. Which iirc peaked a while ago.

Of course there's plastics & other uses. But China has gone big on renewables & battery tech as you know. It definitely helps.

by RetroTechie