Reply #11: can you really put that much in four supertankers?

[hfojvt]

Enough to affect the market? Doesn't the US consume something like a million barrels a day?

No, it is 21 million barrels per day according to wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Oil_consumption

Also, according to wiki, the largest supertanker built has a capacity of 564,763 dead weight tonnage. Okay, then I started to calculate how many barrels that would be, but then decided to read a little more and they mention 4 supertankers with a capacity of 3.166 million barrels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_tanker#The_supertanker_era

So if you filled up four such super-tankers, you would have approximately 60% of ONE day's worth of US consumption.

So my answer is - no, you cannot really affect the price much by storing 4 super-tankers worth of crude. However, a smart business person would reduce their storage when the price is high and replenish their storage when the price is low.

If they really can make the price of gasoline jump by 20 to 40 cents a gallon or by 7-15% they must have a lot more storage capacity than just four supertankers.