View Full Version : Fuel prices
clansman
21st Oct 2001, 20:28
Just a short question about aviation fuel.
I realise that jet fuel must conform to some sort of standards worldwide as regards quality but what about price.
Is it more expensive in the far east for example than in europe
Anyway what price for a fill up on a 747-400
Prof2MDA
21st Oct 2001, 23:00
Not really a tech question.
Too many variables to answer. Larger carriers buy fuel in the futures market, then trade it around, spot prices can vary all over the map but the majors can then lock in a price. Despite that, some locations are less expensive than others for a variety of standard economic regions, so airlines will carry more fuel from less expensive locations (even though the aircraft burns about 10% of that in just carrying it), etc. Aircraft are rarely "filled up" with fuel, only enough fuel is carried to meet legal and "pilot comfort" requirements due to the limitations on payload and the cost of carrying it. How much to fill up and aircraft would also depend on what the starting point was and even the customer configuration for the aircraft.
EGCC4284
24th Oct 2001, 03:33
Dont know the cost, but I put 130,000 ltr's on a PIA last week. All in a good cause.
erikv
24th Oct 2001, 19:48
Prices vary a lot. The US are generally expensive, whereas south-east Asia (eg. Indonesia) tends to be cheap.
I've seen prices range from a little under $1 to way over $2.
At bigger airports, you may come accross discounts for higher volumes.
Regards,
Erik.
MasterGreen
25th Oct 2001, 20:25
There is a old rule of thumb for this which works out in a general way. However this must be tempered with the knowledge that companies have different hedging arrangements and different places have quite wide ranges of prices.
As a general rule then : Multiply the cost of a barrel of Dubai Crude by 10 and this gives you the cost of a ton (1000kg / 1250 liters) of Jet Fuel.
Todays figures show this approximation holds.
Singapore Jet Fuel = US$24.65 per barrel
A Barrel (in oil terms is, as we all know) = 158.98729 liters.
This gives (at an average SG of 0.8) US$0.15533c per liter == US$194.16 per ton.
Hope this helps.
MG