Global Fuel Shortage Tracker — Aug 18 update. One month on from the diesel warning: the shortage map has actually shrunk, but the US strategic buffer just hit a 43-year low
The map shrank, not grew.
- Cambodia — I had this as an active shortage on the March station closures (~2,000 of 6,300 stations shut). Re-checking, the March record itself shows only ~400 still closed within days as the rest reopened. Nothing newer since March 23. Downgraded.
- Italy airport jet fuel — the Air BP rationing NOTAMs at 7 airports. Last confirmation mid-May, and the reporting then said Italy managed it without major disruption. Removed.
- EU systemic jet fuel shortage — ACI Europe's warning that 100+ airports would hit a systemic shortage within three weeks. That deadline came and went in April. The European Commission said in May there were no EU shortages. Removed.
Net: 31 tracked shortages down to 29. The diesel-gets-harder call in my July post did not play out the way I framed it in the aviation-fuel space specifically. Worth saying plainly.
What's still real and getting worse: the US strategic buffer.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve dropped below 300 million barrels — 298.7M as of Aug 12 (DOE), down 6.1M on the week. First time under 300M since January 1983.
Important caveats, because this number gets misreported constantly:
- The reserve's safe operating minimum is around 70M barrels per DOE. There's a separate 252.4M statutory threshold that restricts certain drawdowns. Neither is near.
- It's structured as an exchange, not a sale — from a 172M-barrel release in March. Companies borrow the crude and must return it plus a premium.
- Commercial (non-strategic) crude went the opposite direction the same week: a surprise 17.4M barrel build, biggest since January 2023.
So: strategic reserve at a 43-year low, commercial inventories posting their largest build in three and a half years, simultaneously.
Availability, since that's what this sub cares about:
No physical rationing in the US. Every station has fuel. AAA national average ~$4.07/gal and remarkably flat for weeks despite crude swinging hard. The mechanism is price rationing, not allocation.
Still-active shortages worth knowing about: Russia (78 of 83 regions showing disruption signal, export bans extended), Cuba, Nepal (LPG), South Sudan, Libya, Myanmar/Laos, Kyrgyzstan/Tajikistan.
One genuinely unresolved thing: there's a large discrepancy in how much oil is actually moving through Hormuz. The US Energy Secretary says a 9M bpd seven-day average. Barclays estimated ~3M bpd for the week ending Aug 7. That's not a rounding difference and I can't resolve it — flagging it rather than picking a side.
Sources: DOE, EIA, AAA, CNBC, Barclays. Full tracker at https://global-energy-flow.com/