Wall Street firms could aid Uncle Sam with the Deepwater Horizon oil catastrophe. Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan charter supertankers and very large crude carriers (VLCC's). Such ships could be used to vacuum up the horrendous Gulf oil spill.
Esquire reported the Saudi's use of supertankers on a 700 million gallon oil spill. Where are the tankers? Zero Hedge wrote:
145 Tankers & 127 Million Barrels at Sea
According to research by Gibson Shipbrokers, one in twelve of the world’s largest crude oil tankers are being used to store oil rather than transporting it.
Bloomberg gave a good visualization of this massive convoy: “Those storage tankers, if lined up end to end, would stretch for about 26 miles, enough to blockade the English Channel.”
The man who helped the Saudi's said:
NICK POZZI: Keep in mind that what supertankers typically do is they sit in the middle of the ocean waiting for all the traders to come up with the right price. When they feel that the price is right, the tankers that are full, they take off, and they can be anywhere in the world in a few days. Right now there are probably 25 supertankers, waiting for orders, full of oil. So all they got to do is come to Texas, in the Gulf, unload the oil, and then turn around and suck up all this other stuff and pump it onto shore into on-shore storage. It's not rocket science. It's so simple. It's a Robinson Crusoe fix, but it works.President Obama skirted the supertanker question in his press conference. Should he be interested, one phone call can get him inside Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan. Dial the Erskine Bowles household.
Erskine sits on the board of Morgan Stanley, while his wife is on JP Morgan's board. The club is relatively small. Who knew the Deficit Commission co-chair could make up America's glaring deficit in disaster management?
I'm sure Wall Street is searching for ways to pay back Uncle Sam for trillions in bailout support. A few chartered supertankers is the least they can do. So far the press is quiet on any offers of Wall Street aid. Meanwhile, the "in charge" Obama team turns down international offers in a Katrina like redux.
