alt Hacker NewsI Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil (2015)
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I buy ~200,000 physical barrels of oil for 2 refineries every single day. The quantity is mind blowing and Im not even a particularly large oil trader in the grand scheme of things. The world drinks ~104 million barrels per day or around 1200 barrels a second. An olympic swimming pool holds ~15000 barrels of volume. In Canada, we trade in "cubes" which are M3. Each M3 is ~6.29287 barrels of oil. I do my monthly planning in km3.
I'm happy to answer any industry questions in case anyone has any. It is a fascinating job.
This is right up there with the futures trader who accidentally ordered a barge full of coal delivered to his manhattan office.
Somewhat related, from 2020, "The day oil was worth less than $0 — and nobody wanted it":
* https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/oil-negative-price-1.553899...
Futures contracts are actually somewhat interesting in how fully they are specified. If you want to see how Light Sweet Crude Oil Futures are delivered, that's covered in the NYMEX Rulebook, Chapter 200:
Originally I had planned to pursue geology as a career, and studied it at college. In those days there was still a significant element of the course which concerned hand specimens. Mostly rocks and minerals, but also an impressive display of different crude oils from around the world. High or low sulphur, viscosity, density. Uncapping the small tubes would stink up the whole room pretty quickly.
I want to buy pork bellies and frozen concentrated orange juice.
She’s an entertaining writer & co anchors a podcast called Odd Lots, for those unaware. Entertaining and informative on various niches of money & markets.
I remember this from 2015! (187 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10499297
Came up again in 2020 (157 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22924929
Pure lack of initiative and stuck in a retail mentality. There are 10's of thousands of privatly owned wells, and countless trucks and shipping hubs. It is EXACTLY the same situation with, oh, lets pick, wheat, and a "bushel" whatever the fuck that is, I wanted one, and got one, and corn by the ton, and fuel oil, and coal by the ton, loaded onto my 1 ton truck, drive up to the fucking place and get some.......they dont realy want to sell small quantities....but they will.....mainly they are worried about civilians getting hurt in what are purely industrial environments, but standing y ground and bieng patient and respectfull has gotten me through many gates, loaded, and gone.......often it's the secretary/receptionist who decides, and pulls out a cash slip, then.the rest just happens, sometimes it's the plant manager, who does a hand wave and points after determining that it will be ok, but all in all, it's the same for everything, just find the person who can say yes and ask.
The Toaster Project[1], where Thomas Thwaites tries to build a toaster from scratch also touches upon this subject. Fascinating read.
The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis.
I remember this, and it was hilarious.
Somewhat related is the tale of the commodities trade from DailyWTF that was unfortunately executed literally.
Do you have an idea what one bbl of crude oil weights? Like bowling balls, it depends on the quality of the crude. 55gal @ 8.5lbs/gal to 11.4lbs/gal? 450lbs to 625lbs. Forklifts only.
I can recommend the NPR planet money episode ”The onion king” if you are into commodities trading.
I wonder what the bitcoin is worth now...
Planet Money had a wonderful series of episodes where they did exactly this a few years ago.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/08/26/491342091/plan...
They traced the path of their barrel from purchase, to production, to refining, to the sale of the various hydrocarbon products.
It's a great listen.