A Trafigura tanker. Photo Credit: Trafigura

Three gasoline tankers have spent the past few weeks floating around the Caribbean with no direction for delivery. Together they carry 1.35 million barrels of gasoline and octane booster and some quick (bad) math puts that somewhere around $100 million worth of fuel.


The ships are hanging out in the waters above the Bahamas as their owners are trying to shop around different markets, as Bloomberg reports:

Three tankers holding about 1.35 million barrels of gasoline and alkylate, an octane-boosting component blended with motor fuels, are drifting with no instructions for delivery. The cargoes came from India with intent to land in the U.S., but now they’re in limbo as traders from Trafigura Group Ltd. and Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. shop around for the best selling value in the region.﻿




The value of gasoline here in New York harbor is $1.56/gallon, and the value of alkylate is around $1.72/gal. At 42 gallons per barrel, that’s just under $100 million depending on the split between the two. Then again, if there was a way to get this gas past any port and straight to a pump (we’re around $2.30/gal in America at the moment), we could see a little bit more lining our pockets. Anybody know a dockworker who’d look the other way?