Something bizarre is happening off the coast of Galveston, Texas. Were you to look toward the sea in the Texas port town, you’d be subject to a oceanic traffic jam of epic proportions. Ships carrying oil have gathered along the coast in the Gulf of Mexico in such great quantities that ships approaching the port have been asked to move toward the town slowly in an attempt to ease the burden.
This phenomenon is directly tied to the huge amounts of oil stored internationally and in floating container ships across the world. As oil prices fall, stockpiles of the resource are going through the roof, and governments and companies don’t have anywhere else to store it.
This could cause the price of oil to fall catastrophically further, as supply far exceeds demand for the time being.
To see the full report on this strange occurrence, continue reading on the next page:
Classic Gee this time last year aluminum was 70 cents a pound its 40 cents now…
Those ships don’t look full to me. Sitting pretty high in the water.
Not hearing that on the news at all.
At least two of those vessels/ships are close to empty. The red bottom is the gage for how much draft there is on this ship. The more red you see the less draft, which means it’s lighter than when full. When full you may not see any of the red paint. Don’t believe everything you see. Media needs a story.
I just left our boat at the Yacht Basin in the ship channel…we are out there almost every weekend depending on wind and weather and I can tell you this is normal….these tankers are always anchored there and they are always lined up….this is not a strange occurrence and it raises no concerns.
You should see the actual cost to have that or those ships anchored there… insane cost…
Too bad none of that oil can make it to california, we are too good apparently for that non California EPA gasoline they make us use.
All those ships are empty. Just saying.
Regarding the traffic jamb, I didn’t think to take a picture as I was headed into Houston from Panama City recently. I remarked to my wife as to how many ships seemed to be lining up to get into port. Yes, just like the 405 on a Friday afternoon headed up the hill. For those of you not familiar with Los Angeles, nobody wants to be in this area on Friday afternoon, but everybody seems to be there. The whole freakin’ city.
Galveston is not capable of handling VLCCs (supertankers) because of it’s depth of channel. These ships always have to wait in line to be off-loaded into smaller tankers in a process known as “lightering”. The smaller, shallower draft ships then make the short trip to port to off-load to terminals. There is always a game played to try and catch the market moving up, even by a few cents per barrel, because the millions of barrels these VLCCs carry a few cents can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars. I haven’t been out of Galveston for a while (I live less than ten miles away by boat), but I don’t doubt that the ship count is heavy due to the depressed market.