$OIL: THE CURVE SAYS INVENTORIES ARE BUYING TIME WTI: $88.83 Brent: $98.03 Since February, global observed oil inventories have fallen 507M barrels ~2.8M bbl/day. August alone drew another 95M barrels. Yet futures are deeply backwardated: Brent now: $98 Jul 2027: $83 First principles: Middle East disruption removed supply and inventories filled the gap. But inventories are finite. The curve is pricing two things at once: tight supply today, normalization later. If Middle East flows normalize, oil can fall. If they don’t, the inventory cushion keeps shrinking and the upside risk grows. The tightness is worse downstream: diesel and other middle distillate inventories remain unusually low.