That is entirely consistent with Chris's observations about the role of producers with the ability to store oil in the ground working in conjunction with private equity and/or sovereign wealth funds that don't have reporting requirements. I know I was spooked by the correlation between the amount of money known to be flowing into oil commodity futures in the first half of '08, before the bubble broke, and just afterwards asked Chris about this, which was when he clearly explained the possibility that the actual amount of oil prepays could be much larger simply because of this dark pool effect. The possibility has made sense to me ever since. Dark pool pre-pays could represent several times the amount of inventory than that stored above ground in Cushing, OK, leased tankers, etc. Settling pre-pays while oil is below Saudi Arabia's desired level is a no-brainer in this context and should considerably increase their staying power in this contest of wills. Interesting times.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."