Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
European Oil Markets
27JUL

US draws 7.9mb, Fujairah rebuilds 96kbd

3 min read
10:27UTC

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 Saudi crude reroutes to Suez, freight bitesJump 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
Read story →
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
Asian buyers (India, Japan, China, South Korea)
Asian buyers (India, Japan, China, South Korea)
Asian refiners are absorbing 62% of Yanbu's 3.75m b/d flow, the bulk of Saudi Arabia's rerouted crude now clearing east rather than into the Atlantic basin. That destination split leaves Asian buyers more exposed to any single Yanbu-specific disruption than under the kingdom's normal multi-terminal export pattern.
Russia / Lukoil
Russia / Lukoil
Moscow loses the roughly $14-a-barrel legal headroom the frozen price-cap formula would otherwise have released toward $58, even as Urals trades below Russia's own $59 budget floor. The shadow-fleet insurance workaround the freeze leaves untouched remains the actual route sanctioned crude clears above $44 in practice.
European Union / Council
European Union / Council
Brussels adopted its 21st sanctions package on 23 July, letting boarding states confiscate and sell shadow-fleet cargo outright and freezing the G7 price cap's automatic adjustment to mid-2027, converting indefinite tanker storage into recoverable value for enforcers.
Freight and tanker desks
Freight and tanker desks
The Baltic Exchange's TD3C VLCC benchmark, most desks' reference for Gulf freight, prices a single-vessel voyage while Saudi shippers now pay for two Suezmax charters at roughly double the transit time. That gap leaves any book hedged purely on TD3C carrying unrecognised Suezmax basis risk on the bulk of Saudi rerouted volume.
Mediterranean refiners (Sines, Trieste, Augusta)
Mediterranean refiners (Sines, Trieste, Augusta)
Refiners already facing aframax rates up 198% month-on-month now watch Ain Sokhna draw 23% of Yanbu's rerouted crude through the same SUMED corridor they lean on for product backfill. Fujairah and ARA stocks near record lows leave little room to absorb a thinner Suez product flow.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
Riyadh has rerouted its entire western-coast crude book through Yanbu and Suez since the 23 July Bab el-Mandeb embargo, absorbing a roughly $2m-per-voyage Suezmax premium on every diverted cargo. The kingdom's fiscal breakeven near $108 a barrel makes that freight cost, not the blockade itself, the more durable drag on export economics.