A Gusher of Oil and Fewer Places to Put It – The New York Times

A Gusher of Oil and Fewer Places to Put It – The New York Times

But Saudi Arabia, the world's largest producer, is locked in a price war with rival Russia and is determined to keep raising production.. The price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia has exacerbated the situation.. Not only does oil need a place to go, but the state of the oil market has provided traders with an opportunity to make money.. So a trader or an oil company can make easy money by buying oil at today's depressed prices, selling it on the futures market and pocketing the difference minus storage and other costs - a situation known as contango.. The price of putting a barrel of oil in a tank in Cushing has more than doubled to about 55 cents per month, he said.. Knowing how much oil is stored around the world is a key metric to "understanding the health of the oil market," said Hillary Stevenson, an analyst at Genscape, a market intelligence firm.. Ms. Stevenson said the most important storage areas in the United States, like Cushing, were about half full in the middle of March, but analysts say the safety net is being stretched like never before.. One firm, Kpler, uses satellite