Cushing
Cushing, Oklahoma is the delivery point for the WTI futures contract.
Cushing, Oklahoma's WTI spot price spiked to $91.74/bbl on 24 July, up $8.31 on the week, before giving back nearly all the gain by 27 July as reports spread of a possible strike pause.
Last refreshed: 31 July 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
WTI at Cushing spiked $8.31 in a week, then gave it nearly all back; why?
Timeline for Cushing
Hosted the WTI spot benchmark that hit $91.74 a barrel
European Oil Markets: US crude drew 7.2mb as WTI round-trippedBackground
Cushing, Oklahoma is the physical delivery point for the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures contract, the location where contracts to buy or sell WTI crude are settled by transfer of oil in storage tanks there rather than cash alone.
Because delivery happens at Cushing, its spot price and storage levels function as the cleanest weekly gauge of US crude market tightness: when stocks at Cushing draw down, the spot price tends to strengthen relative to other pricing points, and vice versa.
That structural role, rather than any single week's price move, is why Cushing appears repeatedly in coverage of US crude balances: it is the reference point analysts return to when judging whether a market move reflects genuine physical tightness or paper positioning elsewhere.
Cushing WTI round-tripped in a week
US commercial crude stocks fell 7.2 million barrels to 404.5 million barrels in the week to 24 July, released 29 July by the Energy Information Administration, about 7% below the five-year average. Cushing's own WTI spot price, the cleanest weekly read on US crude tightness because Cushing is where the futures contract physically settles, spiked to $91.74 a barrel on 24 July, up $8.31 on the week.
By 27 July the price had given back nearly all of that gain, falling back to around $83.51, as reports spread that OPEC+ might pause its monthly output increases after September. The round trip illustrates how quickly a stock-draw premium at the delivery point can evaporate once fresh supply expectations enter the market.
