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Thursday, January 8, 2009

"Citigroup Inc.'s commodities-trading unit followed BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc in anchoring a full oil tanker offshore northern Scotland to profit from higher prices later this year," reports Bloomberg here.

Citi's speculation subsidiary, Phibro LLC, "is keeping up to 1 million barrels" in the ship as speculators "hoard" oil hoping prices will rise. Oil inventories have been piling up as demand drops, but oil futures prices are rising as traders bet OPEC will cut production.

"Shell and BP, Europe’s largest oil companies, both have oil stored at sea near the U.K. Frontline Ltd., the world’s biggest operator of supertankers, said yesterday oil traders want to charter as many as 10 additional vessels to stockpile crude."

Posted by Joseph N. DiStefano @ 1:52 PM  Permalink | 2 comments
Comments   
Posted 10:51 AM, 01/09/2009
Pat c
CIti? Arent they the ones who just get a whole bunch of money from the Government for a bailout? Now they are going to stick it to the people who gave them the money and profit from them. I hope those tankers sit there all year and they rot and sink to the bottom of them sea and those companies lose all their money. If I was Obama, id put a stop on their check.
Posted 10:02 AM, 01/12/2009
tammy2
manipulating the law of supply and demand for their benefit. Was it not that long ago that oil prices were through the roof? what happened to all those profits? pure greed
2 comments
About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column, which is printed in the business pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer every Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Joe has worked at the Inquirer, mostly, since 1988. He has also written for Bloomberg and Gannett, authored the book Comcasted, majored in economics at Penn, and fathered six children. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com