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European Energy Markets
31JUL

US draws 7.9mb, Fujairah rebuilds 96kbd

3 min read
09:44UTC

EIA logged a 7.9mb US crude draw to 445.0mb in the week to 15 May, the window's largest, while Fujairah stocks rebuilt 96kbd to 6.593mb, a first build in ten weeks off a record low.

← Back to Caverns restart, 21 points short of NovemberJump to analysis ↓
EconomicDeveloping
Key takeaway

A 7.9mb US draw tightens the West as Fujairah starts to refill on Russian barrels GL 134C keeps moving.

US crude inventories drew 7.9mb to 445.0mb in the 15 May reporting week, the largest single-week draw of the window, with refinery utilisation running at 91.6% 1. RBOB ran $3.794/gal and NYH heating oil $3.943/gal, both bid into the summer, which keeps US product margins firm just as Brent-WTI compresses. With that spread near $1-2, the TC2 transatlantic gasoline arb stays shut, so US barrels that would normally chase Europe stay home and pressure EBOB only indirectly.

The East is moving the other way. Fujairah total stocks rebuilt +96kbd to 6.593mb in the week to 18 May, the first build in ten weeks off the record-low 6.5mb the hub hit in early May , though the level stays historically tight 2. The two readings sketch an asymmetric balance: a Western draw against an early Eastern refill, with the Gulf still short of comfortable.

Feeding that rebuild is Russian crude that keeps flowing. The KSE Institute put Russian oil export revenue at $19.0bn in March on Urals FOB around $76/bbl 3, the supply GL 134C now keeps legally in transit. The draw tightens the basin that lost its Gulf imports while the East absorbs the barrels sanctions were meant to strand.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Two pieces of inventory data tell the current oil market's story. In the US, stockpiles of crude oil fell by 7.9 million barrels in the week to 15 May ; a large single-week drop ; as American refineries ran at over 90% capacity. Near the Strait of Hormuz, the UAE port of Fujairah (a major oil storage hub) saw its stocks tick up slightly for the first time in ten weeks after hitting a record low. The two draws together left global supply 246 million barrels below the levels the IEA considers normal. Separately, Russia collected about $19 billion from oil exports in March, nearly twice the February figure, because the Hormuz crisis pushed global prices high enough to override the Western price cap on Russian crude.

Sources:EIA·Bitget News·KSE Institute
Mentions:EIA →Fujairah →KSE Institute →Urals →OPEC+ →TC2 →Rystad Energy →US Strategic Petroleum Reserve →Strait of Hormuz →Russia →RBOB →EBOB →Brent Crude →West Texas Intermediate →General License 134C →
First Reported In

Update #2 · GL 134C reverses the cliff, Brent -$14

EIA· 26 May 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
Caused by
EIA pencils Brent at $89 by Q4 2026
The record-low 6.5mb Fujairah reading was the trough from which the +96kbd rebuild to 6.593mb in the week to 18 May represents the first recovery in ten weeks.
Occurred 1 May 2026
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This Event
US draws 7.9mb, Fujairah rebuilds 96kbd
The draw tightens the West just as the East starts to refill, with GL 134C keeping the Russian barrels that feed the rebuild legally in motion.
Different Perspectives
Spain's LNG terminal operators
Spain's LNG terminal operators
Spain's 9,145 GWh terminal inventory is the largest single stock in the EU LNG network, an option value that can reroute cargoes wherever the winter strip pays best rather than a cavern gas obligation tied to a fixed date. That flexibility matters more as Germany's cavern shortfall pushes more of the winter security question onto import infrastructure.
European Commission
European Commission
Brussels holds the bloc to 90% on a flexible window while Germany, holding roughly a quarter of EU storage capacity, tracks toward missing its own lower 80% figure by 21 points. A national shortfall this size in the anchor market matters more to bloc security than the flexible timetable alone can absorb.
French power exporters and CRE
French power exporters and CRE
French day-ahead rose in step with Germany but by less, reopening a EUR 7-17 premium that makes northward export flows commercially attractive again after the EUR 43.09 discount evaporated in days. CRE separately authorised RTE and Enedis to buy flexibility locally, betting the coming winter's binding constraint is grid congestion rather than a shortage of firm capacity.
TTF trading desk
TTF trading desk
A visible national shortfall like Germany's 21-point gap is a directional signal, not noise, for a desk holding the summer-winter spread. TTF's flat EUR 58-60 range through this week's German price swings says the market has not yet chosen to reprice refill risk into the front of the curve.
German cavern and CCGT operators
German cavern and CCGT operators
German caverns kept buying prompt gas at TTF near EUR 58-60 through the inversion; the wind collapse to 2.4 GW then flipped the spark spread to plus EUR 29 and put turbines back in the same queue. Every day turbines win that bid, injection at a third of the 877 GWh/day pace needed falls further behind.
Slovakia
Slovakia
Slovakia says it dropped its hold-out on the 21st sanctions package only after Ursula von der Leyen personally signed written gas-price and supply guarantees. The Council of the European Union's own 17,238-character release on the package names neither Slovakia nor any guarantee, leaving Bratislava's account unconfirmed by the institutional record.