Ursa Space’s solution gives customers the ability to monitor global economic trends with data derived from satellite imagery, updated on a weekly basis.

some forecasters predicting the price of oil could hit $200 a barrel.

On the other hand, there is hope that production increases elsewhere (e.g., US, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran) could offset Russian declines. Or, perhaps, that won’t even be necessary if Russia can still find international buyers willing to buy its oil.

How do you develop a machine learning algorithm to find the construction of new crude oil storage tanks around the world?

In today’s blog, we dig into this question with someone who knows the answer: Michael Allen, data scientist at Ursa Space. Michael’s past work experience in remote sensing (NASA) and his education (PhD from University of California, Santa Barbara) served him well on this technically-demanding project.

How do we do it? 

We collect radar satellite imagery of floating-top storage tanks and apply proprietary algorithms to measure volumes. This is the only method we use. We do not estimate inventories based on crude oil flows.

You can read more /blog/an-inside-look-at-sar-based-measurements/">about our techniques and the /blog/faq-what-is-sar/">specific sensor utilized called synthetic aperture radar (SAR).

Why is this important?

In this blog, we examine global crude oil inventories, leveraging Ursa Space’s satellite-derived measurements of storage tanks. 

The three graphs below shed light on the supply-demand balance in the oil market:

1. Global Crude Inventories

Where are global crude inventories in 2021 versus recent historical averages? Is the surplus that formed during 2020 gone?

Even before the data was released, a downturn was apparent in China’s automotive industry. 

Ursa Space’s China Auto Manufacturing Index (AMI) began falling in late May, and continued dropping through June.

The China AMI recovered from coronavirus lockdowns in early 2020, and stabilized for the remainder of the year and into 2021. In May 2021, before the decline began, China’s AMI was slightly above the average levels for 2016 to present.

The S&P GSCI, a widely-followed barometer of commodity prices, the S&P GSCI Soybean index and the S&P GSCI Industrial Metals index.

With an eye on inflation, the Federal Reserve on June 16 moved forward the date for lifting interest rates from 2024 to as early as 2023.

In this blog, we list five economic hubs that are key to understanding the global economy, and demonstrate how satellite imagery can provide the tools needed to monitor them.

In this blog, we discuss the likely scenarios based on proprietary datasets created by Ursa Space that are derived from radar satellite imagery. 

Oil market 

A major shipping route in the oil market connects Middle East producers with European consumers via the Suez Canal.

/blog/faq-what-is-sar">satellite radar imagery.