Assessment of the Capability to Monitor Oil Inventories During the COVID-19 Pandemic by Using Sentinel-1 Data

Oil stock estimation has a direct impact on the oil price and is a critical asset in the global economy. The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns in multiple countries had a big impact on the oil inventories. In this paper, a methodology to monitor oil inventories using Sentinel-1 data is presented. It exploits the differences in the backscatter response with respect to the roof level in floating roof tanks. The methodology doesn't imply advanced processing techniques (such as interferogram or coherence estimation) and it can be complemented with other data sources (e.g. Sentinel-2, VHR) for a more comprehensive foundation of the oil stock estimation.