The heavy oil is for my van, and I only bought £40 worth, so it is more an indication of my inability to forecast price trends, than a significant financial penalty.I buy most of my fuel from Sainsburys, which is owned by Qatar, so I suspect they will handle the regulations in the supply chain, but thanks for providing the info. Hopefully the latest false flag by Washington will increase world support for Iran, and we will be able to take advantage of their oil again.
I'm more concerned by the fact that I tried to take advantage of the weekend pump and dump in Bitcoin's price. I sold my trading coins at just under £7,000, and the price is now well over £7,000. I probably shouldn't complain because I did make a profit of about 40%, and I hope that the price will drop on Monday, and give me a chance to buy them back.
Topic: The price of petrol (gas) (Read 215 times)
Not sure at all this will be helpful, but there is a regulation regarding marine Heavy Fuel Oils (HFO) and their maximum sulphur percentage / exhaust* gases becoming operative in 2020.
This will cut that percentage from the actual max (around 3.5%), to if I recall correctly, 0.5%. Ships not traveling on USA-waters will not be affected, as they already need to comply with the American regulation (0.3% tops I think); but the whole rest of the world fleet will be affected by this.
As a comparative, car fuel max sulphur percentages (in Spain) were of 0.2%...in 1994. Nowadays that has been reduced to 10 ppm, or 0.00001%
So 3.5% is >>>>>>than 0.00001%...
*I believe this is worth explaining, as it may be confusing.
The regulation will affect exhaust gas emission, so in order to comply, there will be 2 alternatives
1) The HFO your ship burns has a lower sulfur composition, and thus, exhaust gases will have a lesser sulfur percentage.
or
2) You still buy and burn HFO with high sulfur, but you filter the exhaust gases with a pretty expensive machine
Now that we know this, and has been I believe, pretty well explained and simplified, I'll further develop way 1.
A HFO will have a low sulfur composition if:
To finish this, that's starting to be both educational but long, there are a couple of fun facts in this "business".
How is this relevant to the topic and OP? Since most of the fleet will start to use low-sulfur oils, the prices on Middle-Eastern oils will be skyrocketing, whereas South American (mostly) will go submarine (a good thing for the people that purchase that north american machine)...
(So YES, this may be a whole conspiracy coming from USA to profit (a lot) and have an excuse to "go to war" with other low-sulphur producing countries (and do some good old plundering))
Sources:
This will cut that percentage from the actual max (around 3.5%), to if I recall correctly, 0.5%. Ships not traveling on USA-waters will not be affected, as they already need to comply with the American regulation (0.3% tops I think); but the whole rest of the world fleet will be affected by this.
As a comparative, car fuel max sulphur percentages (in Spain) were of 0.2%...in 1994. Nowadays that has been reduced to 10 ppm, or 0.00001%
So 3.5% is >>>>>>than 0.00001%...
*I believe this is worth explaining, as it may be confusing.
The regulation will affect exhaust gas emission, so in order to comply, there will be 2 alternatives
1) The HFO your ship burns has a lower sulfur composition, and thus, exhaust gases will have a lesser sulfur percentage.
or
2) You still buy and burn HFO with high sulfur, but you filter the exhaust gases with a pretty expensive machine
Now that we know this, and has been I believe, pretty well explained and simplified, I'll further develop way 1.
A HFO will have a low sulfur composition if:
- The oil it comes from has a low sulfur composition
- The oil is comes from has a high sulfur composition BUT has been treated and reduced
To finish this, that's starting to be both educational but long, there are a couple of fun facts in this "business".
- Low-sulfur oil comes mostly from Arabia Saudi and Middle-East countries. USA has a good relationship with Arabia Saudi, but as we can see, not a good one with Iran (low sulfur oil producer)
- The majority of the world-oil-sulfur-treating plants are located.... (I'll let you guess)....IN THE USA (and this is expensive AF)
- That pretty expensive machine that I mentioned in way 2, was created and is manufactured in......... (I'm pretty sure you will guess this one too)
How is this relevant to the topic and OP? Since most of the fleet will start to use low-sulfur oils, the prices on Middle-Eastern oils will be skyrocketing, whereas South American (mostly) will go submarine (a good thing for the people that purchase that north american machine)...
(So YES, this may be a whole conspiracy coming from USA to profit (a lot) and have an excuse to "go to war" with other low-sulphur producing countries (and do some good old plundering))
Sources:
- https://www.miteco.gob.es/es/calidad-y-evaluacion-ambiental/temas/atmosfera-y-calidad-del-aire/emisiones/act-emis/carburantes.aspx (for Spanish sulfur maximums)
- http://www.imo.org/en/mediacentre/hottopics/pages/sulphur-2020.aspx (for the whole Sulphur 2020 thingy)
I'd regard a 5% loss as being a small loss.
Anything about 20% of loss is not disapointing... If you're investing with minimal risk, I normally do with atls and sell a bit below a reasonable high.
If you're using a high risk trading scenario, the important thing is not to sell if its likely to reach that point again. Diesel I'd probably avoid due to the politics behind it (I've always considered the science behind diesel to be a better fuel to be rediculous). Most people don't care about the science thohgb, if the vans moving then that's all that matters... The government moan about renewable publicly and then invest in diesel trains without even thinking of electrifying the rail network. So there's certainly a future for diesel. Put a stop Los 20p below wher you bought it and a take profit at wherever is reasonable and see if you can profit.
With risk there are always good returns if it plays out in your favour (diversifying risky investments is usually a good idea too: if you risk $10000 over 2 assets and one tanks to zero, you have the other to rely on and reduce the odds of your capital reducing to zero).
Anything about 20% of loss is not disapointing... If you're investing with minimal risk, I normally do with atls and sell a bit below a reasonable high.
If you're using a high risk trading scenario, the important thing is not to sell if its likely to reach that point again. Diesel I'd probably avoid due to the politics behind it (I've always considered the science behind diesel to be a better fuel to be rediculous). Most people don't care about the science thohgb, if the vans moving then that's all that matters... The government moan about renewable publicly and then invest in diesel trains without even thinking of electrifying the rail network. So there's certainly a future for diesel. Put a stop Los 20p below wher you bought it and a take profit at wherever is reasonable and see if you can profit.
With risk there are always good returns if it plays out in your favour (diversifying risky investments is usually a good idea too: if you risk $10000 over 2 assets and one tanks to zero, you have the other to rely on and reduce the odds of your capital reducing to zero).
Welcome to the elite club of traders = 99% thinks the same about themselves. So please don't beat yourself up.
It's no wonder I'm rubbish at predicting the price of Bitcoin. I thought the price of heavy oil (diesel) was going to go up because of the tankers that I believe the US attacked, and are trying to blame on Iran, and the next day the price dropped by 5 pence per litre.
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