Oil vessels decline to unload until petrol price soars

Loaded with oil, three vessels sit idly in the UK coastline declining to unload their cargo until oil market speculations have driven up petrol prices.

With such strategy, it is forecasted that oil prices will rise by 26 per cent this Christmas.  Edmund King, President of AA, warned consumers of future hikes due to traders storing oil until the petrol cost goes up. The price of oil per barrel last year climbed from $40 to $80, with the cost likely to rise even higher in the following few months.

Even from the beginning of the oil tankers’ stay in Lyme Bay, the value of the petrol they carry has climbed from £313 million to £378 million, a boost of 21 per cent in revenues just for doing nothing and waiting offshore.

One of the giant oil tankers in Lyme Bay, the 159,300-ton SKS Segura first arrived on 24 September.

Both registered in the Bahamas, the 50,300-tonne Tristar Kuwait vessel and the 43,000-ton Alklan tanker have also been awaiting orders.

This is not the first time oil vessels have anchored in Lyme Bay. Several tankers did the same last April.

The UK is not the only country facing oil problems as gas producers refuse to deliver petrol. Earlier in China, taxis in the southwest municipality of Chongqing were forced to wait hours in queues just to get their gas tanks filled up.

It was reported that fuel supplies had been diverted to snowstorm-devastated northern China and faced with poor revenue margins. As consequence, oil producers refused to increase their output, resulting to China’s worst natural gas scarcity in years.