Can money be made from the global fuel crisis?
by Jon Cherry on 11/06/08 at 12:04 pm
2 comments
The days of affordable petrol are over. Clever people with lots of letters behind their names are predicting that the local petrol price will be over R16 per litre by the end of this year. Yikes.
So, if the &*^% is about to really hit the fan, why then does it feel like there is a collective feeling of resignation in South Africa about this change rather excitement about this huge nationwide entrepreneurial opportunity sitting right on our doorstep?
Sure South Africans love their cars and considering the number of rain forest destroying 4×4’s still on the roads, you would be forgiven for thinking that we are actually living in Dubai. But the personal transportation tipping point is here and so to are the alternatives.
Segway dealerships, bike stores that sell bicycles that don’t look like they were designed for a Tron movie and car dealerships that specialise only in fuel-sipping economy models – the business opportunities in this arena right now are massive.
But is there a market? Will our citizens change their car-loving culture to embrace alternative transportation options? Damn right they will! When petrol starts eating into beer money you’ve got a winner on your hands. We’re thinking casual cycles online has a good ring to it.
Jon Cherry is the founder of Cherryflava Media, a Trends & Innovation company. Jon is also the brains behind Cherryflava.com one of the most influential websites in Africa. Jon likes to pick out the business needles in South Africa's haystack. View more articles by Jon Cherry.
Jon
Jun 20th, 2008
Hi Jon
The title of your post is can money be made from global fuel crisis?
Understandably you talking from small business perspective, but from a different view point, the high oil prices have begun to create new markets which didn’t exist before.
Main example being of oil exlploration and research, obviously this industry has experienced a major boom. Companies like Shell, BP etc have almost double the profits, with out increasing their costs. So they have even more cash than they did before, which has allowed them to explore oil resernves which previously were deemed as unprofitable.
Two years ago you had to be able to pull oil out of the ground and still make a profit on a oil price of USD 75 per barrell. So oil reserves in Greenland where never explored because it would cost almost USd 70 per barrel to get it out the ground.
Well with the present market at USD 135 per barrel these previously, un-profitable oil fields, are not profitable.
And so the oil industry has grown new arms and legs in strange countries, sparking the development of a multitude of small scale traders sharing in the growth.
toni
Mar 6th, 2009
Well, I for one, would love a little Vuka or Vespa, but it needs a trailer for 3 kids, and all their catundu…and a weatherproof cover for the winter rains!! hmmm