Oil Refinery, originally uploaded by WAXY.

In today’s New York Times article, Where Is Oil Going Next?, a long discussion of the volatile oil market hides these interesting paragraphs:

With storage tanks filling up onshore, private and national oil companies, refiners and trading companies are storing another 80 million barrels aboard 35 supertankers and a handful of smaller tankers, the most in 20 years, according to Frontline Ltd., the world’s largest owner of supertankers.
The different players have different reasons for storing oil, whether onshore or offshore.
National oil companies are hoping to reverse the price slide by holding oil off the market. Iran alone is reportedly using as many as 15 tankers to store crude oil in hopes that higher prices will prop up its economy, which is dependent on oil exports.

Think for a second: you can make more money buying oil now, paying to store it on land or leasing a ship, and then sell it a year later. At what point does risk management come into the picture to ask about all of that oil on the high seas, just going to and fro, and the safety of the oil tankers? The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill contained approximately 10.8 million U.S. gallons – at this time, there is enough floating oil for over 311 Exxon Valdez spills. This is a disaster waiting to happen. Or what of the Somali Pirates?
At what point does this ecological arbitrage impact regions and the greater ecosystem? Being that this article was found the Business Section, this question wasn’t raised. Carbon taxing wouldn’t mitigate this arbitrage, but it might make it more expensive.