The Saturday Sept. 14 attacks knocked more than 5 million barrels a day of crude oil production offline, sparking a nearly 15% spike in crude oil futures when the market opened the following Monday.
Read: The explosion of ‘alternative’ data gives regular investors access to tools previously employed only by hedge funds Subsequently, news reports and Saudi officials pointed to a faster-than-expected recovery of the country’s production output — talk that was initially met with skepticism. But a subsequent rebound in inventories has confirmed statements by officials of state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Company, widely known as Aramco, that production and capacity have been restored to pre-attack levels, Ursa said.
While the U.S. Energy Information Administration offers weekly data on domestic crude inventories, timely data on stocks elsewhere in the world aren’t so timely. While Saudi Arabia shares inventory data with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the global JODI oil database, those figures tend to be more backward looking, analysts said.
Meanwhile, the real bread-and-butter for firms providing alternative data comes from their ability to use technology to interpret the images and other inputs.