[Straight Vermonter]

Call me ignorant but what is the purpose for this facility? Why does so much oil need to be stored rather than sold/used?

[thackney]

Why does so much oil need to be stored rather than sold/used?

The US has less than 500 million barrels of oil in commercial storage.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCESTUS1&f=M

That sounds like a lot, but for the entire country, that is less than a less than a single month of supply.

http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/weekly/images/crdsusm.gif

This facility is just a little piece of that supply chain.