The U.S. is awash in crude oil, and the storage tanks keep filling up.
Despite falling prices, U.S. oil producers continue to pump faster than market demand. That has created a glut of oil in U.S. refineries, underground tanks, pipelines and oil tankers in transit. This month, the Department of Energy began reporting just where those surpluses are growing most rapidly.
The biggest buildup is happening in the East and Midwest, where roughly three-quarters of the available storage capacity is full. The Midwest includes the industry's major storage and transfer hub in Cushing, Oklahoma. Midwest refiners had filled some 80 percent of storage capacity in March, the latest data available, which is the highest rate recorded by the Energy Department's EIA since it started collecting storage data.
