Currently the SPR is the fullest it has ever been, with 727 million barrels of mostly light, sweet crude in storage.

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This will allow the producers to ship to the high-paying Asian region instead of the U.S. Midwest, where excess crude at the Oklahoma storage hub has decreased prices.

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Rates recovered strongly in June, according to ICAP, partly because large vessels were in demand for storage, as oil companies waited for crude prices to strengthen.

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The chief of Iraq's oil marketing organisation, Mohammed al-Jibouri, said that exports of crude oil, some of it being held in storage since before the war, could resume by mid-June.

ECONOMIST: Still dangerous

Some heightened Middle East tensions supported crude, and did offset a bearish U.S. weekly DOE storage report Thursday.

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Crude oil prices were higher Wednesday, on short covering and on a bullish weekly DOE storage report.

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Meantime, Nymex crude oil prices are slightly lower late Tuesday, pressured by a bearish weekly DOE weekly storage report.

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Associated with LOOP are Clovelly Dome, a 40-million-barrel salt cavern storage facility, and the Capline pipeline, which is the largest pipeline system delivering crude oil from the Gulf Coast to the Midwest.

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