Cushing crude oil inventories, week by week

04 Jan 2019 to 16 Oct 2026 · 407 weekly readings · million barrels

Range

Measure

EIA dated by

Estimate

Confidence band

EIA latest

27.6

16 Oct 2026

Week on week

+1.0

Build of 987 thous. bbl

Year on year

+6.4

Vs. 21.2 on 17 Oct 2025

52-week range

18.6–31.5

70% of the way up the range

Tanks filled

28.2%

Of 98 million bbl

Our estimate

27.8

24 Oct 2026 · before the EIA print

EIA weekly print Estimate, EIA anchored Tank bottoms

Download full series (CSV)

The read

A fifth build, and a miss on 12 October

Cushing took in 1.0 million barrels in the week to 16 October, its fifth build in a row. The hub has added 6.1 million since the week to 11 September, from 21.5 million to 27.6 million, its highest level since the start of May and 6.4 million above the same week last year.

Our 12 October read was a miss. We put the hub at 25.5 million and the EIA printed 27.6 million for the week to 16 October, 2.1 million higher and above the top of our 80% band of 24.1 to 26.7. We called a draw and the hub built by 1.0 million. It is our second miss in a row, and both came in low while the hub was building.

Our 24 October pass reads 27.8 million, with an 80% band of 26.3 to 29.0. That is 0.2 million above the 16 October print, so it points to a hub holding near this level rather than building at the pace of the past five weeks. The pass falls in the week to 30 October, which the EIA reports on Wednesday 4 November; the print for the week to 23 October comes first, on Wednesday 28 October.

Year on year the hub is up 6.4 million barrels, from 21.2 million in the same week of 2025. The seasonal envelope below is the cleaner comparison: 2025 held above the floor through the whole summer, and this year's line has sat under the five-year band since the spring.

What the level implies

Below the floor, spreads price the tank, not the curve

Five of the 42 weeks of 2026 have printed under 20 million barrels, the last of them the week to 24 July. On previous approaches to this zone, prompt WTI time spreads widened into backwardation within a month, independent of what total U.S. commercial stocks were doing.

What would change the read: a sustained run above 22 million, which would restore blending flexibility at the hub, or a slide back under 20 million, which would take it away again.

Reading the bands

Under 20 million: constrained. Tank bottoms and line fill dominate; blending flexibility is minimal.

20–35 million: tight. Operable but thin. Historically where backwardation appears.

Above 35 million: comfortable. Ample working room; the curve leads, not the tank.

Seasonal envelope: this year against the last five

Shaded band is the highest and lowest level recorded in each calendar week, 2021 to 2025.

5-year min–max 2025 2026

Last twelve weeks

Thousand barrels. Our estimate is shown where a satellite pass fell in the same week.

Week ending	EIA	Our est.	W/W	Y/Y	Filled	Vs. floor
16 Oct 2026	27,594	25,476	+987	+6,363	28.2%	+7,594
09 Oct 2026	26,607	–	+1,862	+4,606	27.2%	+6,607
02 Oct 2026	24,745	24,672	+444	+2,041	25.3%	+4,745
25 Sep 2026	24,301	–	+553	+834	24.8%	+4,301
18 Sep 2026	23,748	22,485	+2,266	+10	24.2%	+3,748
11 Sep 2026	21,482	22,850	−342	−2,079	21.9%	+1,482
04 Sep 2026	21,824	–	−684	−2,033	22.3%	+1,824
28 Aug 2026	22,508	20,969	+80	−1,714	23.0%	+2,508
21 Aug 2026	22,428	–	+1,176	−204	22.9%	+2,428
14 Aug 2026	21,252	22,534	−1,314	−2,218	21.7%	+1,252
07 Aug 2026	22,566	19,634	+1,611	−485	23.0%	+2,566
31 Jul 2026	20,955	–	+2,356	−2,051	21.4%	+955

Method and caveats

Official series: The official Cushing crude oil inventory series: EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report, series W_EPC0_SAX_YCUOK_MBBL. Ending stocks in thousand barrels, Friday close, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Shown here from January 2019, and plotted as a step: each print holds until the next one lands, the same way the satellite line is drawn.
Our estimate: Floating-roof measurement from satellite imagery, converted to a fill percentage of surveyed tank volume. Cadence follows the imaging pass, roughly every six to twelve days; between passes the line is held flat at the last reading rather than interpolated. Mean absolute error against the nearest EIA print, 368 passes from 2018 to date, is 3.3%: median 2.7%, ninth decile 6.8%, mean bias +50 thousand barrels. The band on the chart spans the middle 80% of those readings. Single weeks miss by more.
Working capacity: Taken as a constant 98 million barrels. That is a stated assumption rather than an EIA figure, held fixed so that one week can be compared with another, which makes fill percentages indicative rather than exact.
Operational floor: 20 million barrels, a market convention for unpumpable tank bottoms and minimum line fill. Operators do not publish a figure; treat it as a band, not a threshold.
Revisions: EIA does not revise this series after publication. No smoothing, interpolation, or seasonal adjustment is applied here.