Oil Tankers Anchored Off Coasts Waiting For Price To Rise

Up to a hundred huge oil tankers laden with millions of tons of oil are anchored off our coasts waiting for oil prices to rise again before they dock.

Tankers Anchor off Devon Coast

Jerry Carter, operations director for the agency, said: "It is indicative of the world market as owners are waiting for prices to rise.

"I believe in some cases it is shortage of capacity ashore to take the cargo.

"Some of them are here for a few weeks but they are changing over all the time.

"It is good business for the local economy.

"We are delivering stores and changing over crews, and crewmen are coming ashore on leave or for medical treatment.

Somehow I dont think these oil tankers waiting at sea until the price of oil shoots up is good for local economies. In my country the prices of electricity and gas shot throught he roof when crude oil rose to 150 dollars a barrel at the end of last year and we are still paying way above what we should for such utilities. In fact it really kicked off the reality of this 'credit crunch'.


Is this not pretty cynical by these greedy oil corporations that are obssesed with profit and ripping us all off? This situation in Devon is the same in most countries around the world. Oil tankers are waiting on the price to rise, I suppose they will have to starve us of it for a bit and hope those pesky pirates dont hijack them while they are sitting ducks!!

I am sick of such blatant greed.

reply to post by BigC2012


its not surprising. it is profiteering. if their in your national waters.
oil dictates the cost of living in the west. the east knows this.
the more oil cost. the more fuel costs. transport costs increase so does the product their transporting.
the #ed up part is the guy at the end of line is the one who pay the difference. not the middle man, not the front runner or the producer.
We pay.
then comes tax time and its not the people that paid extra that get extra. its the barstads that refuse to let their profits decrease that get the honey.

[edit on 13-4-2009 by spearhead]

I saw this reported on the news the other day and it seemed a little strange to me.
I thought these ships were transporting oil to refineries that was already bought and paid for. These ships don't just load up and sail around going from port to port trying to find the highest bidder to maximise their profits. It just looks like a bit of a scam to me.

After the cost of oil dropped sharply at the beginning of the year, we saw a drop in the fuel prices at the pumps, but this just didn't reflect the actual price of the oil, so we were still getting screwed.

I live in Northern Ireland. We dont have a choice as to where we get our electricity from. Just one monopoly supplier. This time last year the price per unit of electric was 11p. It is now 16.7p. They blamed oil prices being so high. Heres the catch though. They decided to buy a years supply of oil as soon as the price of crude oil rose!Now the excuse is that they cant reduce the price for over a year because they will lose money, even though oil is cheaper then it has ever been!!

It utterly disgusts me the way our electricity system is run. There is millions of tons of oil floating freely at sea and no-one is allowed to buy it because it is cheap. Then why laod a tanker up in the first place it is such a scam.

This Is Anti Free Market
It’s one thing for the political system to keep the oil companies private on competition grounds. But if the political system of our nations was concerned about us, then this example of Monopolizing activity would clearly be outlawed.
“Capitalism”, “Free Market”, “Competition Mechanisms” is not supposed to mean legalised Monopoly.
It’s almost like medieval times when criminals would lay siege to a market town until their ransoms were met.

But Still An Investment Opportunity for (almost) EVERYBODY…
Oil is still cheap compared with where it was and will be.
Don’t you see that if you personally would like to make a 100 plus % profit the best way is to get of your ass and talk to Futures broker now.
Oil is one of the few areas where long term the risks are guaranteed to outweigh the gains.

But morally speaking.
Clearly life isn’t tough enough on our slave workers who work for like 5 an hour 40 plus hours a week. Yes prices are still rising (slower than before) wages are stagnant, and credit is still hard to come by which means unemployment is unlikely to fall and so conditions are unlikely to improve.
But if life was truly hard on the majority of people then perhaps these same people wouldn’t vote for the same two political parties? Until that starts to change (and it might not unless people starve) the Masters of the Political Universe have many opportunities to invest in future their wealth, and very little to worry about.

Why is it that only the Big Oil company's manage to eek out Billions of quarterly profits, Even through a disastrous financial crisis. Ill tell you why! MARKET MANIPULATION, and speculative trading practices. If the aurora, northern lights were not in line with the stars, they will use any excuse to raise the price of oil. The ENRON loop hole which needs to be closed is another reason. That is exactly why there is so may oil tankers off the coast. Just another reason why BIG BUSINESS is sucking this country dry!