16 JUNE 2018 • FOGHORN FOGHORNFOCUS: OPERATIONS 5 1 0 . 3 3 7 . 9 1 2 2 www.bay -ship.com A l a m e d a , C A Bay Ship and Yacht makes it a priority to per- form on-time, quality service for all vessels. We are a full service shipyard cosistently serving Al- ameda, San Francisco Bay, the west coast and the world’s maritime industry for over 40 years. KEEPING BAY AREA FLEETS IN SERVICE FOR OVER 40 YEARS Planning for the Unpredictable: The Volatility of Marine Fuel Pricing By Ed Santa, Santa Buckley Energy E veryone, everywhere is talking about it. Fuel costs. For weeks, the price of fuel was on the rise and had been for some time. Then, the price of oil dropped abruptly during Memorial Day weekend when gas prices typically rise for summer. Russia and Saudi Arabia, it seems, had indicated that they would increase the oil supply allowing for prices to drop. That was a surprise to many as gas prices were already high and getting higher, which was cause for concern for many industries. Back in late April, an executive at Ryanair, a discount airline operating in Europe, predicted that airline industry may see some go out of business due to the high cost of jet fuel. The trucking industry posted an article inAmerican Trucker this spring with the headline, “U.S. Fuel Prices Keep Rising,” citing a jump of 48.6 cents increase over the same period the previous year. And, GasBuddy, a website and mobile app that helps drivers find the best gas prices, had been all over the news (NPR, CNN, NBC, and Bloomberg) trying to lessen the sticker shock that drivers were experiencing coast to coast when they pulled up to the pump. To understand this complex and fluid issue, FOGHORN asked Ed Santa, Vice President at Santa Buckley Energy, a PVA Associate member located in Bridgeport, CT to explain. We are all consumers of news and we are all consumers of petroleum products. When we see, hear or read the news we do not usually relate that news to the price we pay for petroleum in its many forms. At Santa Buckley Energy, we educate our customers to translate certain news to make more informed decisions when purchasing petroleum products. We all know about the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and their desire to control product flows as a tool to get a fair return on their cargoes of crude oil and finished products, or so they say. While OPEC typically dominates the news when we experience large swings