Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
Iran Conflict 2026
11SEP

US draws 7.9mb, Fujairah rebuilds 96kbd

3 min read
09:25UTC

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 23 to 3: Iran goes to the Security CouncilJump to analysis ↓
ConflictDeveloping
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
Turkey
Turkey
Golden Global Portfoy Yonetimi closed three funds to new money a day after telling regulators they were legally separate from its sanctioned parent, and the central bank held its rate at 37 per cent citing energy-driven inflation risk. Ankara is absorbing balance-sheet and monetary costs from a war it is not fighting.
Qatar
Qatar
Qatar's foreign ministry said it was coordinating with China during a Beijing visit to restart negotiations, while filing hundreds of letters at the UN documenting Iranian strikes on its own civilian facilities. Doha is mediating for a neighbour it is also formally accusing, a contradiction the referral's clean vote count does not show.
China and Russia
China and Russia
China and Russia voted against the IAEA referral alongside Niger, and Iran's ambassador told the Board that inspections were impossible during a war Iran did not start. Beijing is separately mediating between Doha and Tehran, meaning the same power blocking the West's legal track is running the diplomatic one that might actually end the war.
Jordan
Jordan
Jordan said it intercepted 18 of the 20 Iranian ballistic missiles fired at its territory on 8 September, the war's first sustained salvo against a state that is not a combatant. Amman's 90 per cent interception rate held, but a tenfold jump in missiles fired in a single volley raises what the next one might carry.
United States
United States
CENTCOM said its strikes disabled five Iranian tankers only after two failed missile attempts on a US warship, and Treasury moved the same week to a presumption of denial on all Iran licences. Washington now treats commercial shipping and financial plumbing as one enforcement front rather than two separate tracks.
Iran / IRGC
Iran / IRGC
Iran's foreign ministry called the CENTCOM tanker strikes a war crime and a breach of the UN Charter, while the IRGC named two US destroyers it says it damaged without releasing images. Tehran expects the claims, unverifiable either way, to sustain domestic morale after losing five tankers in a single day.