Saudi Oil in Singapore: Consultant Charges $4,000 an Hour for 'Closet'

Transcript of the segment

What BBN said on air. The facts are in the original report: Reuters.

1. Hank LedgerSaudi Arabia will keep some of its oil in Singapore, in caverns one hundred fifty meters underground, starting in the second half of twenty twenty-seven.

2. Hank LedgerWith us is Maribel Szczepanski of Hollowell Grange Advisory, who bills four thousand dollars an hour. Maribel, what is this deal?

3. Maribel SzczepanskiAt the strategic level, Hank, it's a forward-positioned supply resilience asset. It's a space where you put things, and it has a door.

4. Hank LedgerSo it's a storage unit.

5. Maribel SzczepanskiIt's a storage unit that can hold about nine million barrels at the Jurong Rock Caverns. That framing alone is worth two hours of my time.

6. Hank LedgerSaudi Arabia's energy minister says bringing supply closer to Asian markets strengthens the flexibility of the network. Is that true?

7. Maribel SzczepanskiYes. Closer is closer.

8. Maribel SzczepanskiAt the strategic level, you want the oil near the people who need the oil, and I'd have charged you for that sentence.

9. Hank LedgerYou keep jingling that padlock. What is it?

10. Maribel SzczepanskiAt the strategic level, it's our security architecture. It's brass, it locks, and the key is in my other jacket.

11. Hank LedgerAramco agreed in twenty twenty-three to store five point three million barrels in South Korea's Ulsan reserve facilities for five years. Did you advise on that one?

12. Maribel SzczepanskiAt the strategic level, we advised on the closet. I mean the concept of the closet. Ours is a very good closet.

13. Hank LedgerThe closet.

14. Maribel SzczepanskiFine. We've never visited a cave. We read the Reuters story and added a slide.

15. Hank LedgerFor the record, that was a four-hundred-dollar answer. What would you charge to say it's a storage unit?

16. Maribel SzczepanskiFour thousand dollars an hour.

17. Hank LedgerI just said it. Free.