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Irina Slav

Irina Slav

Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.

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Is Saudi Arabia Lying about Its Oil Inventories?

Saudi Arabia’s reports about declining crude oil inventories were instrumental in the buildup of trust on the market that OPEC’s—and the Kingdom’s specifically—efforts to rebalance crude oil’s fundamentals were working. Now, a satellite imaging company, Orbital Insights, is challenging these reports, suggesting that OPEC’s leader may have well been lying to get prices higher.

While this would not exactly be a surprise, it would throw a stone in the quiet waters of the official OPEC narrative that has played a lead role in several oil price rallies so far this year. And here’s the size of this stone: Orbital satellite data suggests that Saudi Arabia’s crude oil inventories have risen slightly since early 2016—not dropped. A slight rise in itself would normally not be a big deal, but Riyadh has been reporting declines in inventories over this period, to the tune of some 70 million barrels.

But things are not so simple, the FT’s David Sheppard notes. The Orbital Insights data only focuses on above-ground storage tanks. Its satellites collect and analyze images of the floating roofs of these tanks, estimating the amount of oil each holds based on the shadow the oil casts across the top. Related: OPEC Eyes $70 Oil

Yet, Saudi Arabia stores oil abroad, too, and in pipelines, as well as in underground tanks that cannot be seen by satellites. It is possible that there is less crude oil in storage abroad and underground, and the 70-million-barrel reduction comes from there, but it is just as possible that there is even more crude in Saudi Arabian storage.

What does this say about oil prices? Most bluntly, if the Orbital data are accurate, it says that Saudi officials were not exaggerating when they said they were ready to do whatever it takes to rebalance the market—“whatever” in this case meaning less-than-truthful about their inventories.

If word gets around that the leader of the pack has been less than transparent about its inventories and creating a make-believe scenario of market rebalancing, other pack members might decide to follow its example, which would fulfill the expectations of those skeptics that from the start said that the OPEC deal wouldn’t work because OPEC always cheats.

By Irina Slav or Oilprice.com

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Leave a comment
  • Mike on November 09 2017 said:
    It doesn't matter. Saudi oil fields and storage are now the battlefield in Middle East war. Destroy that, you win.
  • bilsue on November 09 2017 said:
    It is all a scam and the consumers once again pay the price because an
    Arab smiles and lies. there is plenty of oil --there is plenty of gas--I think GREED is the name of the game








    gr
  • TheJack on November 09 2017 said:
    What they are lying about are their reserves.
  • John Brown on November 09 2017 said:
    Of course Saudi Arabia is lying. There is a glut of oil floating around, despite all the cuts in production, and those cuts in production have left huge amounts of idle capacity sitting there. Also as this shows those cuts in production have not reduced the glut as is being said. That reduction is just a lie. Also while these lies, which everyone knows about, are pushing the price of oil up the result will be more production, especially in the USA, and more oil floating around.
  • MisterM on November 09 2017 said:
    Saudis may have fudged but they really don't have much reason to lie. Simple enough to ratchet down field production - and ratchet right back up - whenever they wish. So it's meaningless how much they have in storage when in a few days/weeks they can bring on 1-2-3 million bpd if they want.
  • In the know on November 10 2017 said:
    Its not about whats above ground its whats left that counts. Saudi has significantly less accesable reserves that it touts... watch out for the IPO.
  • ali on June 17 2018 said:
    What Saudi Arabia is doing in Yemen is similar to what Israel is doing in Gaza, except it's worse. Both have deliberately bombed schools and hospitals, both have targeted non-combatants, both have restricted the import of medicines for desperately ill civilians, but at least the Israelis have never stooped so low as to use starvation as a weapon of war as the Saudis are doing in Yemen.

    Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. The Saudis are committing crimes against humanity in Yemen.

    And the US government supports them both

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