With oil at a low bottom price of below $30 per barrel, piracy is no longer such a profitable business as it was when prices hit 106 dollar a barrel a few years ago. The drop in oil prices, was apparently a factor in reducing piracy in the area. Which is understandable. Oil tankers are enormous, and ships that carry expensive cargo are designed to be difficult to board. Stealing can mean hijacking the original tanker, disabling its tracking devices, taking it to a location where it can’t be spotted, and transferring thousands of heavy barrels to a different vessel that can then be sailed away. Stealing crude also means finding a buyer for it, or else getting involved in the messy and dangerous business of illegal refining. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-now-cheap-even-pirates-120218185.html
That's not all. Fuel has gotten so cheap that ships are now choosing to take the long way around Africa rather then pay the fees to transit the Suez Canal. http://gcaptain.com/canals-feel-rip...ping-crisis-as-vessels-go-the-long-way-round/
Thanks, Plaz. That's the first time I read about this. The interaction of factors is challenging to figure out. The low oil price is due to falling demand (through more efficient motor vehicles, slacker than anticipated economic growth, etc) as well as the more-than-adequate levels of supply. But as I see it that would not have to translate into lower bunker oil prices if the demand for bunker increases. Bunker is a different product (from Brent, say) and might be expected to grow relatively more expensive. But there must be others who know more about this than I do. Also I guess that low bunker prices might permit the rehabilitation of older vessels of smaller cellular capacity than the latest generation of mega-ships as fuel efficiency becomes less important. This in turn might further drive down the Baltic Dry index, and so further reduce to the need bring a ship back by the quickest route.
