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Page added on October 14, 2012
Oil Espionage: Traders Spy on Oklahoma Hub With Satellites, Sensors and Infrared Cameras
NPR has a look at the lengths people will go to understand oil supply dynamics at Cushing, Oklahoma (which drive the WTI price) – Oil Espionage: Traders Spy on Oklahoma Hub With Satellites, Sensors and Infrared Cameras.
The bottleneck of crude stored in Cushing, Okla., has become the country’s “biggest bank vault of oil,” Businessweek’s Matthew Phillips writes. And it’s only getting bigger.The clog — which is pushing down the price of West Texas Intermediate crude from Oklahoma, creating a gap with its international rival, Brent — is making traders rich.
Information is everything, and traders are using high-tech extremes to extract data about oil storage and flow from the high-security oil hub. Photographers in helicopters? That’s relatively low-level when it comes to these storage tank spy games, Businessweek reports:
Recently, photographers have started using infrared cameras to peer inside the tanks. The difference in heat can often show where the oil line is.
Aerial photography is common. A bird’s-eye view allows analysts to estimate storage levels by calculating the angle of shadows cast by massive tanks’ floating roofs.And that’s just the beginning.
A private “energy intelligence” company called Genscape is funding much of the high-tech surveillance, reports Businessweek, whose parent company — Bloomberg — also does their own Cushing surveillance by way of twice-weekly satellite flyovers.
4 Comments on "Oil Espionage: Traders Spy on Oklahoma Hub With Satellites, Sensors and Infrared Cameras"
BillT on Sun, 14th Oct 2012 2:31 pm
Of course! ALL oil producers lie. That’s how they stay in business and get suckers…er investors…to keep funding their guesses.
Just one way Americans are being spied on these days. I’m glad I live where such toys are too expensive for the government. Where even keeping the traffic lights working is a problem.
DC on Sun, 14th Oct 2012 2:46 pm
Well, for once, the Chinese are not being blamed. At least, they had the honesty to admit its Wall St, spying on its friends in the Oil Cartel so they can squeeze a few more % out of their dodgy ‘market’.
Outcast_Searcher on Mon, 15th Oct 2012 4:05 am
First this is a really old story, as far as the basic concept. Second, there is nothing new here, except that people are actively “spying” to try to ascertain the amount of oil at Cushing.
Well so what? Since anyone can fly a plane and take pictures, etc. it’s not like this is really corporate espionage.
And articles, blogs, news reports, etc. have been reporting on pipeline status, attempts to use trucks, etc. for years.
A major pipeline to provide a direct route to the gulf, to let major tankers move meaningful amounts of oil into the global market at competitive prices is the key to removing the Cushing glut.
Not rocket science. Not new. Not news (any more). I guess only at peak oil sites could such an old and information-free article generate interest…
BillT on Mon, 15th Oct 2012 9:40 am
Outcast, the key to relieving the glut is to end the fraking bubble now. No new pipeline needed. End of story.