Posted on 11/20/2009 10:03:17 AM PST by autumnraine
More than 50 oil tankers are anchored off Britain - pieces in a game in which the only winners are market speculators.
The losers are the millions of British motorists paying over the odds for their petrol and diesel.
After yesterday's report in the Daily Mail on how several so-called 'oil shark' tankers were moored near the Devon coast, dozens more vessels were revealed to be loitering off-shore.
Some are carrying aircraft fuel or fuel for homes. Others are empty, waiting to be restocked before setting off around the globe.
But according to industry experts, a significant number are 'oil sharks' - tankers that have been cynically told to wait for crude prices to be driven up before they unload their cargo.
With values soaring on the international markets, fuel made from their oil is unlikely to appear on a petrol station forecourt any day soon.
Paul Watters of the AA said: 'Tankers are off the UK coast and also off the U.S. They are acting as storage tanks. As always, motorists are the victims in this. They are at the end of the food chain.'
he Daily Mail has learnt that 54 tankers are anchored around the British Isles.
Six are off the Essex and Kent coasts, five are moored in Lyme Bay, while four are lurking next to the Isle of Wight.
But the biggest fleet - around 30 ships - lies around ten miles from Southwold, Suffolk in the only waters around the UK where ship-to-ship transfers of oil are allowed.
They come from as far afield as Malaysia, Liberia and Singapore - and include 1,000ft vessels capable of carrying more than 300,000tons of oil.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
They are paying rent. Those oil tankers are expensive.
Well they have to dock/park/store those huge vessels some place when demand is down. They can’t be tied to the docks taking up space where other ships need to be off loading/loading. I can understand floating storage tanks for some period as they keep the wells flowing at previous rates. But at some point all available storage will be filled whether floating, land, temporary, etc and the wells will be shut back.
Charge rent? What the heck are you talking about? Who has the right charge them rent? Who owns the water they are parked in?
outstanding post
thanks for pointing out a profound fact
A good source of all refineries planned/unplanned down time.With fuel demand week, refineries shutting down
Refineries from New Mexico to New Jersey are under severe economic pressure because of falling demand for fuel, with a number of facilities shutting down in recent months.
Valero Energy Corp., which shuttered a major refinery over the summer, said Friday it would permanently close its Delaware City oil refinery and layoff 550 workers.
It is the largest largest refinery in the U.S. to close this year.
Refineries in the Northeast are particularly vulnerable because many are older, operate less efficiently and must compete with gasoline imported from Europe.
The Delaware City refinery, where workers were notified of the closing Friday, lost about $1 million every day this year, said Valero spokesman Bill Day.
El Paso, Texas-based Western Refining Inc. announced earlier this month that it would close its Bloomfield, N.M., facility, putting 100 people out of work. Valero, based in San Antonio, said in September that it would idle two units in Delaware City, cutting about 150 jobs. Last month, the company said it would cut another 100 jobs at its Paulsboro, N.J. refinery by the end of the year.
The Paulsboro announcement came just days after Sunoco Inc. said it would indefinitely idle its Eagle Point facility, which employs about 400 workers in New Jersey.
In June Valero shut its refinery in Aruba, which had a capacity of about 275,000 barrels a day.
The Delaware City refinery had a capacity of 210,00 barrels a day.
US Refinery Status:
How amusing.
Hmm, I wonder what would happen if the British sank the flotilla? :)
the word “week”???
Yep.... I started to mark it [sic] but didn’t. Spell check doesn’t catch those kind of mistakes.
I just saw an episode of “The Universe” where they described all of the methane lakes on one of Saturn’s moons, Titan. How did all of those hydrocarbons get there if Titan never had dinosaurs and plants? Where did Earth’s come from and how much is really here?
Difficult to read further after such false but indcentiary statements.
Vast majority of commodities speculators are bankrupt within 12-18 months of trading. And yet, Marxists made the "masses" believe that speculators always win. This article even claims they are the only ones that win.
Well, it works: many on this forum, too, believe this garbage about "speculators" and "greedy Wall Street."
How are the morotists victims? This is total nonsense. The oil in these tankers is not sold yet. There are no buyers.
Please cut out the garbage about "you" and "us." The first thing you should know about oil markets are that they are truly global. All of us pay the same price.
"that they see tankers off their beaches just waiting to make more cash off of them."
Perhaps Brits should be less enamored with socialist rhetoric and learn something about their economy. Have you heard of such a thing as inventory? Well, in a recession, inventories rise. This is because the goods already produced have no buyers. Oil is no different. This particular oil was taken out of the ground but found no buyers. That is the sole reason it is sitting in tankers.
Now, why can't you make out that much? Think about it for a second. The author of the article does not need to deal with oil and tankers. He can go to almost any factory and see an unusually large inventory of produced goods --- say, desks. He can then write with the same strength that the schoolchildren are victims: the desks are sitting in some storage so that producers can make profit. You can repeat the same story with timber destined for housing, plastics, metal works --- anything your heart desires. There is nothing special about oil here.
Nothing special, that is, except one thing: socialists have managed to convince the masses (and make those masses angry) that oil fluctuates due to speculators. Hence the article, bogus as it is, about oil.
Now, why a conservative such as you buys into this purely socialist propaganda?
“Please cut out the garbage about “you” and “us.” “
Oh please, I don’t buy into any socialist garbage. I’m telling you that according to the news piece, the brits mentioned are pissed. THEY are socialist, I am not a Brit. So there is no ‘you’ and ‘us’.
But gas prices keep going up and are not looking to go back down.
Thank you for the clarification. Please accept my apology for the misunderstanding on my part.
Oh it’s no problem! I was just thinking WOW! I’m getting hit hard! Until they make a sale, the oil is theirs to do what they wish. But the Brits themselves (living in a Socialist state and being accustomed to that mentality) were pitching a fit!
It’s the dollar.
The price of oil is denominated in DOLLARS.
Dollar down = Oil Up
If the dollar were at 2007 levels, Oil would be about 55.00/bbl.
bflr
Its the unacceptable face of the market. Capitalism is supposed to be about efficiency. Here we have fifty odd very expensive ships, designed to move fuel oil around, instead lying idle because, effectively, it is cheaper to do that than actually doing what they are supposed to do. Meanwhile, motorists in the UK are paying nigh on $10 a gallon and the countries economy is going to ratchet because costs are so expensive.
The “market” will indeed sort all this out eventually. Its all the damage being caused in the meantime that worries me.
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