Re:Suez Canal says traffic in channel resumes after stranded...
by omarhaneef on Monday March 29, 2021 @12:36PM
(#26624411)
There is a term for the cost of just holding something you can't move: the carrying costs. Different commodities have different carrying costs, so you can look at the forward prices for wheat, oil, pork bellies and so on and get a sense for how much it costs to hold on to something for a week or a month etc.
(On rare occasions the curve is inverted)
It won't tell you how much it costs this tanker to delay delivery by a week but it will tell you on average how much "the market" values a week's delay.
It is still a chore to go through and tally all the goods but I think a few main goods (oil, wheat, coffee etc) would account for a large chunk of it and if the carrying costs as a whole would give a sense of the order-of-magnitude of the economic loss.
The loss itself may be distributed between various risk sharing parties like insurance companies and so forth.
(On rare occasions the curve is inverted)
It won't tell you how much it costs this tanker to delay delivery by a week but it will tell you on average how much "the market" values a week's delay.
It is still a chore to go through and tally all the goods but I think a few main goods (oil, wheat, coffee etc) would account for a large chunk of it and if the carrying costs as a whole would give a sense of the order-of-magnitude of the economic loss.
The loss itself may be distributed between various risk sharing parties like insurance companies and so forth.