(chart 1: model based on tanker data. click to enlarge)Floating inventories should typically decline as demand picks up seasonally moving through the third and fourth quarter. Yet floating storage is increasing (see chart 1 above) to a new record high. Anecdotal evidence lends support to the above analysis.
(chart 2 above: AG to USGC VLCC in US$ per barrel. click to enlarge)Low freight rates (see chart 2 above) result from OPEC not using tankers they had been using last year when they were producing flat out. This provides the first and most important of a few key incentives to increase floating storage. Another incentive is the shape of the forward curve which needs to be in sufficiently upward sloping contango (see chart 3 below). Future prices have to be above today's price plus the cost of the tanker. There are also financing costs which need to be covered.
(chart 3 above: NYMEX WTI Crude forward price curve. click to enlarge)As OPEC increasing production will be the supply factor which ends the current oil price rally, changes in the above three charts may provide leading indicators to determine when oil prices have topped out and will begin to move sideways or fall.
Bear in mind that the above analysis is of the supply side of the oil market. As mentioned previously, above US$80 per barrel (oil spending equivalent to 4% of GDP) demand is likely to fall. OPEC may be able to created supply-driven price spikes above US$80 per barrel, but these are unlikely to last.