Every WTI futures contract promises delivery at Cushing — making this Oklahoma tank-farm town the physical anchor of the world's most-traded oil price. Current stocks: 22.6 million barrels (EIA, week ending 2026-08-07) of ~78 million capacity. Here's why those tanks move markets.
Related: how WTI futures work · Brent vs WTI · the glossary for contango and backwardation.
Crude stocks at Cushing are 22.6 million barrels as of the EIA week ending 2026-08-07 (up 1.6 million on the week), against roughly 78 million barrels of usable ("shell") capacity.
A dozen major pipelines converge on this town of ~7,500 people, connecting Texas and Rocky Mountain production, Canadian imports and Gulf Coast refineries — with tank farms holding up to ~78 million barrels. Its central, connected position is why NYMEX chose it as the WTI delivery point in 1983.
In April 2020, COVID had collapsed demand and Cushing's tanks were effectively fully leased. Traders holding expiring WTI contracts faced physical delivery with nowhere to put the oil — so they paid others to take it, and the contract settled at −$37.63. It was a Cushing storage event, not a world-oil event: Brent, with no physical delivery, never went negative.
Tight tanks at the delivery point squeeze the WTI contract specifically: the front month rises against later months (backwardation steepens) and WTI strengthens against Brent. Below ~20 million barrels, operational minimums come into play and the market starts pricing "tank bottoms" risk.