HOUSTON - In the prairie town that calls itself the pipeline crossroads of the world, 400 oil storage tanks sprawled across Cushing, Oklahoma, are nearly empty, drained by refiners worldwide to plug a massive shortfall in global supplies caused by war in the Middle East.
Cushing is among the largest oil storage hubs in the world. Oil levels in its tanks have fallen rapidly since the war began and Iran effectively closed tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
