I was forgetting about the possibility of having expensive machinery blow up. Plant and assets are not expendable like the workforce.
I think one of your points speaks against itself though. A lot of money is going into shipping oil in the other direction. That means that a huge market is not being directly catered for directly and to serve that market currently must impose great shipping costs. I know those shipping costs aren't as big as the initial expense of laying a pipeline but the pipeline is an asset on the companies books, using shipping lanes isn't.
Also owning a huge money generating/labour providing asset in a third world country gives you a lot of power.
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