Global Trade This Week – Episode 265
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Pete Mento 0:01
You're watching Global Trade this week with Pete Mento and Doug Draper.
Doug Draper 0:10
Hey, everybody! Welcome to Global Trade this week. This is a special edition for some of you because it's going to be super abridged, and we're just gonna power through this sucker, but I have to say hello to my partner in crime who happens to be at home right now, Pete. So how you doing, my friend?
Pete Mento 0:29
Happy to be home. Happy to be home. Yep. Happy to be home. Good weather in New Orleans this time of year. It's you know mid 70s, clear skies, a little humid. It's really nice. So I'm happy to be here. The nicest part of the year. Really excited for.
Doug Draper 0:43
Love it. All right. Well, that being said, and our time commitment, let's rock and roll.
Pete Mento 0:48
Yep. So my first topic today is is an interesting one. Five tankers left Russia today, full of diesel, on their way to the U.S. That's good news. You know, we need the diesel. It's bad news because it's also a bit hypocritical on our policy. But what's really interesting, Doug, is that two of those ships are currently under sanction. So two of the ships that are coming here are sanctioned by the U.S. government to operate. Now, are you trying to tell me that of all the tankers that were available, they couldn't have found five that weren't sanctioned. I truly believe this is a poke in the eye. Yeah, we'll send you what you need, but you know the sanctioned ships, the UC can't move anything anywhere. We're going to put a little bit of on a couple of those, just to make a point. This is the level of desperation that we are at right now with regards to diesel, that we are willing to overlook some of our most closely held sacred issues and throw them out the window in order to keep the harvest season going, in order to keep you know home heating going, in order to keep whatever we have to do doing, and keep gas under diesel under $7 a gallon. Doug, I mean, come on, right? Like this. This is a little embarrassing from an international relations standpoint for the U.S. and for trade policy. We just basically said, ah, forget all that stuff. We just want to keep Billy Bob and his f3 50 rolling down the road, and we want to keep, you know, we want to keep Clem's harvesters working because it's kind of important for the economy, and it's amazing that that once that level of necessity pops up, we're willing to overlook.
Doug Draper 2:27
Yeah, well, rules are very important to follow until they're no longer convenient, and I think this is a case in point. And you know, Billy Bob and his f3 150, the amount of fuel that's coming over, Pete. When I saw this one, I did a little research. Is that it's enough diesel fuel to fuel America for six hours?
Pete Mento 2:55
A whole six,
Doug Draper 2:56
huh? A whole six hours. So
Pete Mento 2:59
we're willing to completely throw all of our ethics out the window for six hours of diesel.
Doug Draper 3:05
Yep, and we'll we'll put it on sanction ships. We don't get political, but this comment is going to be political. All this has to happen in the next seven days in order to have a win before the elections. So those rules are no longer convenient. So get it over here. Even though it's a drop in the bucket of six hours of usage, so be it. That's not really an energy solution. That's kind of a geopolitical statement. So we'll see. I mean, it gets a lot of hype, but I don't know if obviously nothing's going to come of it as far as impacting the cost of fuel at the pump.
Pete Mento 3:42
That's wild. That's wild. And also think about how much we consume. If three whole tankers of diesel is just enough for six hours, you know, you start doing the math. So that's 24 a day. 24 tankers a day of diesel is necessary to run the U.S. economy. That is wild, buddy.
Doug Draper 4:01
Yeah, very true. Very true. All right,
Pete Mento 4:06
halftime. Want to do halftime? Let's do halftime. Then we'll do your part last.
Doug Draper 4:09
Okay, cool. I love that. I love it.
Pete Mento 4:12
Who wants to go first? You go first, Doug. I always go first. All
Doug Draper 4:15
right. Well, this is funny because we're you know this is a show about global trade, but we're going to spend 1/3 of it talking about just dumb shit, but and I this one's you're going to like this one, and you may have already heard about this one. But America Idol is coming to Boston. Have you heard about this?
Pete Mento 4:31
No.
Doug Draper 4:32
Well, it's a unique American Idol. So apparently, somebody in in the town of Boston said when people arrive to Logan Airport. They just don't have the true Boston feel, right? Have you heard about this? I have. It's awesome. It is awesome. So they are searching. The city is searching for the most authentic Boston accent to welcome arriving passengers. Right, so travelers were basically complaining. Hey, they didn't feel Boston was Boston enough, and so the airport said, "All right, well, let's get some hometown personalities. You don't have to be anybody famous. You just got to have the best Boston accent, right?" So apparently, there's been 6000 auditions. They've narrowed it to eight finalists, and I think the voting is happening literally right now. So by the end of this week, we'll know who the winner is, and I'm sure there's going to be memes and all kinds of stuff. Already are, really, and it's going to be awesome. And I guess Ben Affleck, although they weren't official, they may have been part of the 6000, but they're not one of the one of the eight finalists. But Ben Affleck did one. I think he did it on Jimmy Jimmy Kimmel the other night, and Gronkowski, and some others. And yeah, the voting goes through the I think the 28th, and then the winner will be announced. I think middle of next week. So, anyway, this is my attempt. Okay, to all right, I'm going to
Pete Mento 6:02
crush you, Doug. But go ahead.
Doug Draper 6:04
This is my attempt. Okay. All right. Hey, welcome to Boston. Drag you, Duncan. Pack your card, Havadia. Get a wicked hammered at the bar. Then head to Fenway with some wicked piss of seats behind the green monster, and watch the Sox play. Hey, how do you like them apples, you friggin' chatterhead?
Pete Mento 6:24
That's your Boston. That's your Boston. I'm going to channel my. I'm going to channel my father. Ready?
Doug Draper 6:32
I think it was pretty good, but let me see what your old man would do.
Pete Mento 6:36
No, it was embarrassing. This is my dad. Ready? Hey, how are you? Welcome to Logan Airport. Really happy to have you, but I got to tell you, if you're a Yankees fan, get the hell out right now. Stop by Donkeys, get a large regular, bang a Yui as soon as you get out of Logan, and do us all a favor. Use your friggin' blinker. That would be Boston. And I've been watching this because I follow a lot of Boston comedy accounts. I think they're very funny, and every one of these guys did, you know, they did the actual script because there's a script that they wanted you to read, and then they made up ones that were just so weird, terrible. New Englanders are so mean, and there's one guy he makes bumper stickers that say, "I hate it here. I'm never leaving." Like that's how we feel. Like we can't stand it, but we're never leaving. So if this person who wins doesn't convey that level of irritation and aggravation for where they're from, I'm out. I'm out. I need. I need that level of Bostonian.
Doug Draper 7:33
Yeah. Why is this
Pete Mento 7:34
happening to me? Why do I live here? Why did my family come here in the first place? Things were nice in Sicily. Why did we ever leave? You know what? My mother's family's from Cook. We should just go back to Ireland. That's what I want to hear.
Doug Draper 7:45
Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll we'll see what the script is, but it'll be awesome. So we'll have to announce the the winner at the next on the next show.
Pete Mento 7:54
Yes, sir.
Doug Draper 7:55
All right. Well, your half, yeah, your halftime is uber important. So I'll let you go.
Pete Mento 7:58
Yes. Vote. Speaking of voting, Doug, vote. I don't care who you vote for. I don't care if it's left, right, in the middle. I don't care if you go out and vote for SpongeBob SquarePants. Please, everybody, if you can early vote where you live, early vote. If you're not going to be home, it's probably too late to get an absentee ballot. So shame on you. But get out there and make sure that you have what you believe in heard. We don't talk politics on this show, but I think we can talk civics. And there's a lot of people who have worked very hard with time, struggle, struggle, and toil to give all of us in this country the opportunity to have our voice heard. And I know it feels like a like you're whispering into a hurricane by telling the world how you feel, but it's sad that less than a third of us tend to vote in the midterms. That's really sad, man. These are people that make decisions for you, and not just nationally. Think about your school board, right? The people that are on your city council, your mayor, your vice mayor, the people that manage the money from your taxes. This is your opportunity to say, I think this person will do a better job than that one, and then get to hold them accountable. So get off your ass and vote for whoever it is, please.
Doug Draper 9:06
Yeah, good one. I like that we don't participate in politics, but I loved your comment about participate in civics. So so good on you. I'm glad that you brought this one up.
Pete Mento 9:17
All right, man. Thanks to Cap Logistics for always giving us the support that we need here and loaning us Keenan, and we really do appreciate it. All right, Doug. What's our next topic?
Doug Draper 9:27
All right. So this one is fuel related as well, and I read an article that said that the the shipping industry is investing. This is not an individual company. This is all told $200 billion on. purchasing dual fuel vessels. So what does that really mean? It's like ships that can operate in traditional marine fuel, but also on LNG or methanol, which I didn't even know was. Was an option, right? And they can flip a switch basically. So think of like a hybrid car. You know, one leg of a of a journey could be on on diesel, and then the next one can be LNG. No real conversions needed, and it should be kind of interesting, but I don't know. They're saying part of it. The reason it's doing it is that they're hedging their bets. They meaning that the industry is that there's going to be regulations. Environmental regulations are going to be coming. Let's hedge our bets and let's just be prepared when that happens. The challenge is nobody knows what those official rules and compliance are going to be, but they're coming. Vessels last a long time, so let's just get ready for it, right? You're also hearing more large customers are demanding environmental reduce environmental impacts, and and and we'll kind of go from there. So 200 billion, right? The challenge with that immediately is currently clean fuels are very expensive, right? So it's always going to be more than fuel for the foreseeable future, right? And it's a foreseeable future three years, five years, 10 years. That's to be determined, and then this this came up that I saw that I didn't even think about this that ports lack the sufficient infrastructure to be able to manage alternative fuels, and there's no finalized global emission framework, for lack of a better term, that's been defined. So it's a little surprising to me that $200 billion bet on let's be prepared, but we're not really sure what's coming. But we think it's coming soon, and we're hopeful. I don't know, man. Maybe when people throw around Bs instead of M's now, it's not that big of a deal. But God, that's a hell of a lot of money, and I think the total ships combined that are on order, it's like 850, which is
Pete Mento 12:07
incredible.
Doug Draper 12:07
Incredible. I don't know. I mean, if you if you heard about this or what's your take?
Pete Mento 12:11
Well, yeah, ships are expensive, and that's why they make them last so long. You know, they they build them to have very long operational lives. You want to try to get 20 years out of a ship with these. I got a feeling they're going to try to get 30, right? And this is one of those things where you put your money where your mouth is. If if the industry is being asked by shareholders and it's being asked by BCOs to come up with a way to have less of a carbon footprint because they have responsibility to their customers and their shareholders, they got to listen to the voice of the customer. And I am pleasantly surprised to see industry making such a significant forward-looking bet on the environment. That all being said, it's a hell of a gamble because what happens 10 years from now, if let's say these requirements never really fully realize, or what if 1015 years from now the technology is so much better that any kind of operational opportunity to get out of this is obsolete? And you bring up the infrastructure, man. I mean, they need to make some serious changes. And infrastructure to ports is always a multi-billion-dollar upgrade. So we have a lot of money to spend there. While we're talking about this, man, shout out to Fleet Zero. Worked with them a while ago. They're making all electric ships and all electric trawlers and all electric tugs, and their shore power that comes from their battery technology is truly incredible. So yeah, shout out to Fleet Zero. I'm hopeful though.
Doug Draper 13:38
Yeah, yeah. Your point. Yeah, the the I know you got a a jump here, but to your point, what does the technology look like 15 years down the road? Like, oh, you could have done this for half the cost or a third of the cost. So that's something I had not thought about.
Pete Mento 13:53
And and operate for a third of that cost, right? Imagine, and now you've got to explain to people why other folks are doing it cheaper. It's wild. Yeah. Well, that's going to do it for us this week on Global Trade. This week, abbreviated version. Thank you to our friends at Cap Logistics for their unwavering support. Thanks to my co-host, mr. Doug Draper. Thanks to our our technology assistant on loan from Cap Logistics, Keenan. And if it's happening in Global Trade, if it's happening in global trade, we'll talk about it next week on global trade this week. Take it, excellent.
Doug Draper 14:25
Catch you later, man.
Pete Mento 14:26
See you.