Iran Crisis: Oil Stock Rebuild Simulator & Charts

Yes. The 125% and 150% cases replace the positive net draw and add another 25% or 50% of that draw as a larger buffer. This represents a preference for greater resilience, not an EIA purchase forecast. It requires capacity and willingness to buy. The percentage is relative to depletion, not the entire February stock level. Do not count the same expansion again as new-facility filling.

This page deliberately limits exposure to distant assumptions. It includes the release month and four following months, using full calendar months. Five months is a chosen product boundary, not a statistically validated guarantee of EIA accuracy.

No. The reference is end-February 2026, not a normal or optimal stock level. Net depletion measures change since that date. Older deficits or excess stocks are outside that change. Commercial normal-stock comparisons remain diagnostics only.

Capacity is not a funded or scheduled refill target. The reference is the last reported weekly level before February 28, 2026. Older depletion is outside this event-focused indicator, and the model does not claim every withdrawn barrel must be repurchased.

Low/base/high replace 50%, 75% and 100% of positive cumulative global net depletion. Two larger-buffer cases use 125% and 150%, adding 25% or 50% of the depleted volume beyond full replacement. These are sensitivity assumptions, not EIA refill targets, probabilities or confidence intervals. The same global basis is used across all three time horizons.

Lower acquisition costs, favorable forward carry after financing and storage charges, stronger expected demand and available tanks can encourage rebuilding. Expensive prompt barrels, backwardation or uncertain demand can discourage it. The scenarios vary participation; they do not claim to measure a live forward-curve trigger.

No. A global implied balance does not reveal how much stock change occurred in tanks or in transit. The refill share can be varied, but it is not a measured adjustment for shipping routes or voyage length. No separate oil-on-water volume is added.

The component editor accepts stock refill shares from 0% to 200%. Above 100%, it adds a percentage of the positive current-to-reference gap as a larger-buffer assumption. A zero gap still gives zero; use a higher explicit reference to model an independent stock target. Facility capacity-fill and new-oil percentages remain capped at 100%.

Yes. The custom editor offers an alternative component-based model seeded with dated OECD and SPR stock pairs. Its results do not reproduce or add to the global headline. Never combine a global draw with overlapping component deficits. Custom results remain user assumptions.

The editor provides a copyable prompt requesting primary sources, observation dates, benchmark assumptions, overlap checks and structured JSON. You can paste the response into the editor for review. The tool validates structure and numeric ranges, but neither an AI response nor a successful import verifies the underlying claims. Missing figures must remain explicit gaps.

New capacity can create an initial-fill requirement separate from rebuilding existing inventories. Enter incremental capacity, target filling percentage, oil already in that capacity, the share requiring new oil rather than transfers, first-fill month and filling duration. Only filling within the selected period contributes. No specific Indian project capacity or start date is assumed by default.

No. A facility scheduled outside the scenario contributes zero during it. Filling is spread uniformly across the entered filling months and only overlapping months count. Project status is context, not a probability multiplier. Approval, construction completion and the date oil first enters storage are different milestones. Edit timing and volumes to test delays or lower utilization.

Net first fill equals max(added capacity times target-fill percentage minus oil already held in that added capacity, zero), multiplied by the new-oil share. Internal transfers do not add global inventory demand. Do not also include the same expansion in an existing stock reference level. Percentages are converted to fractions in the arithmetic.

No. Custom calculation and JSON import run in your browser tab. Copying the research prompt does not contact an AI service. You can explicitly download your assumptions as a JSON file and re-import them later; reloading the page otherwise resets the editor. Scenario inputs and generated results are not included in analytics.

No. The projected cumulative total combines past-month STEO estimates with five forecast months. It is calculated from consumption minus production over actual calendar days, beginning in March 2026. It describes the implied net change at the forecast cutoff, not measured withdrawals to date. The page separates past estimates, forecast draws and forecast builds.

It is the additional flow of oil needed to increase stocks toward a chosen reference. It is temporary demand for storage, separate from the end-user consumption of fuels. Here it is a scenario requirement rather than an observed purchase order.

Monthly net draw in million barrels equals (PATC_WORLD consumption minus PAPR_WORLD production) in million barrels per day times actual calendar days. Sum the signed monthly volumes from March 2026. Builds offset draws; no monthly undersupply is counted twice.

Replacing 400 million barrels requires about 1.10 mb/d over 12 months, 0.55 mb/d over 24 months or 0.37 mb/d over 36 months, using 365.25 days per year. These are arithmetic examples, not this indicator’s estimated target.

No. The reference frames depletion around the conflict that began on February 28, 2026; it does not prove causation. Seasonal movements, pre-existing inventory choices, refinery operations and changes in demand also affect stock levels.

No. The global monthly flows are EIA STEO estimates and forecasts. The refill rate applies a chosen 50%, 75%, 100%, 125% or 150% share and a 12–36 month horizon to positive net depletion. Those choices are StorageCurve scenarios, not EIA purchase forecasts.

It uses the global petroleum and other liquid fuels balance, including crude oil and petroleum products, natural gas liquids, biofuels and other liquid fuels. It is not crude-only. It does not identify which tanks or countries hold the change, and crude and finished products are not interchangeable in delivery, processing or location.

EIA STEO global consumption minus production, multiplied by actual days and summed from March 2026 through the five-month forecast cutoff. The headline combines past-month estimates with explicitly labelled forecasts. It is global implied net depletion, not a sum of selected stock categories.

Those stocks overlap the global balance. Adding their deficits would count some barrels twice. They can provide independent diagnostics, but no component stock shortfall is added to the global net draw.

Not from these two global flow series. The calculation does not assign separate strategic refill shares or infer which government released oil. The dated SPR diagnostic and component-based custom editor are separate from the global headline.

No separate China deficit is added or excluded. The source is the world total-liquids balance, which encompasses China. It does not identify the Chinese portion of implied depletion or provide a Chinese normal-stock reference.

US distillates already sit inside OECD commercial oil inventories. Their separate gap is shown as a diagnostic without being added again. Product shortages can persist despite available crude because refinery capacity, yields and shipping constrain conversion and delivery.

The updater rejects an incomplete path and retains the last published dataset. It never substitutes zero, carries a rate forward or skips a missing month in the cumulative calculation. The retained source date remains visible.

Builds enter as negative draws and reduce cumulative net depletion before a refill share is applied. Individual months are not clamped to zero. Only the final refill basis is clamped, so a net build since the baseline produces no positive refill target.

Production exceeds consumption, so the balance implies stock building. That build reduces cumulative depletion. A negative cumulative total means net building since the baseline, and the published refill basis becomes zero rather than a negative purchase requirement.

Its production-minus-consumption balance already implies stock building or drawing. This model sums that change once. The later refill scenario does not allocate those same forecast builds again or modify EIA consumption and price forecasts.

The five-month cap applies to the EIA outlook used to calculate net depletion. After that cutoff, 12–36 month refill rates are target divided by time. They do not extrapolate production or consumption or establish whether sufficient surplus will exist.

The focused updater fetches STEO directly and publishes its release date. Each release can revise past estimates and forecasts. The five-month window starts with the release month, and regeneration alone never moves it forward. A release older than 62 days blocks a new publication and the last published outlook is flagged stale.