Market analysts keep screaming about an oil surplus that nobody can actually locate.

Standard Chartered's Paul Horsnell points out the absurdity: forecasting models predict oversupply, yet physical markets signal tightness. Then there's China's strategic reserves—a black box that tells us precisely nothing.

The disconnect is wild. Prediction frameworks built on spreadsheets say one thing. Actual trading floors say another. And the world's biggest crude buyer? Their stockpile data might as well be fiction.

Until barrels materialize in verifiable storage tanks instead of theoretical projections, this so-called glut remains what it's always been—an invisible narrative with zero proof.