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Peter, this thread is the right one to mention the future prospects of fuel prices, as the ferry operators may have to re-do their operating calculations.
Presently, there are oil reserves that countries like the USA fall upon when prices go up suddenly: these are reserves that have been previously purchased when the prices were lower.
With an extreme price-rise in oil, the reserves tend to be drawn upon, reducing the demand for imports, and this counter-ballances the increase per barrel.
When the oil price goes down again, then imports of petrol increase, and the reserves of oil in the USA and other countries are stocked up.
However, may-be you should know that Japan is expected to increase oil imports by 500,000 barrels a day, plus coal and gas in much larger quantities than hitherto, in order to replace the energy that a number of atomic stations are not and will not be able to produce.
Germany has closed down all 17 nuclear power plants for check-ups, but seven of them will not run anymore, owing to the Japan crisis and the ensuing nuclear scare.
Other countries have frozen any projects on new atomic power stations.
To be realistic, your preview of how oil-prices will return to normal, is not in line with what highly qualified analysts are writing, Peter.
A long-term increase in oil, gas and coal imports will make even the stock-piling of reserves become very, very expensive, and these may even run out, meaning that imports of carbon fuel will depend directly on availability from the oil/gas fields and coal-mines.
As far as oil is concerned, I consider it highly unlikely that the ferry-operators, DHB (the legal operator of Dover Port) and Gov. will not take these new events into account. I simple cannot se Gov. going ahead now with any form of Port sale or privatisation, as the asset is too valuble to jeopardise, and the ferry-operators must be protected from having to foot a 400 million pound debit.
You should note that DHB receive their income mainly from arrival of ships at berths, but if increasing ticket prices (owing to fuel costs) lead to more vehicles using the Channel Tunnel, the ferries might even have to cut down on crossings, in order to save fuel, and maximise the vehicle volume on the crossing that remain.
It is all an if and might here, I know, but it is something that the Government is unlikely to overlook. We simply cannot afford to take the risk of jeopardising the ferry operators and our Port, and in such times of economic catastrophe as now (with talk even of cancelling unemployment/housing benefit) and child-benefits, and masses of people being laid off from the public and private sectors, I cannot see the p/p adventure, which is an extremely high-risk venture proposal, coming to any fruition!