The annihilation of time by space: Pluri-temporal strategies of capitalist circulation

Abstract

This paper contributes to thinking about the circulation of commodities across global supply chains by considering moments when circulation is intentionally slowed down for the purpose of capital accumulation. I examine oil tank farms at sites such as Cushing, OK, which act as a spatial fix allowing producers and speculators to place millions of barrels into storage during moments of overproduction. Oil storage is largely driven by futures markets. When prices are low, speculators store oil in order to derive higher profits by selling their product at a later date – a strategy that I describe as the annihilation of time by space. However, as tanks fill up, the crisis of overproduction begins to express itself as a shortage of storage capacity. In the absence of tank space, speculators have turned to supply chain infrastructures such as railcars and oil tankers as creative storage alternatives. Any empty space remaining in tanks becomes highly valued and traded or speculated upon as its own commodity. Ultimately, this paper offers a corrective to recent literature on global capitalist supply chains by demonstrating that capital accumulation relies not only on the speedy movement of commodities across global space; rather, capital employs pluri-temporal strategies of circulation.

Storing value: The infrastructural ecologies of commodity storage

“…As Mazen Labban reminds us, “capital does not flow – it hops instead” (2017: 268), from storage sites at various stages of production. In an era when storage space is increasingly valued and speculated upon by the oil industry (Simpson, 2019), rethinking the role of storage is critical.…”

Materiality in the Seam Space: Sketches for a Transitional Port City Dome District

“…Inspired by the material celebration of porous stone as metaphor in Benjamin and Lacis's essay (1986), the article considers flows and borders in energy transition and biomass global logistics, and the particular material behavior of wood pellets in warehousing and transit. Cowen's (2010) proposal of ports as seam spaces and Simpson's (2019) proposal of logistics imperfections and accidents help provide a new frame for port protagonism in global supply chains (see also Hall & Jacobs, 2010). Wood pellet volatility, and the risk of its combustion have precipitated innovation in constructed material and safety system solutions through dome technology; a construction technique which, until 2010, was used for other kinds of bulk storage.…”

Power and precariousness in the expert hierarchies of the US hydrocarbon industry

“…The rights to these future hydrocarbons can be bought, sold and traded for a portion of their future expected financial value based on engineering and financial experts’ estimates and projections (Field, forthcoming a; Wood, 2016). Once produced, oil and gas enters a world of pipelines, pumping stations, storage tanks and refineries on the way to the point of consumption (High and Field, 2020; Simpson, 2019). From initial hydrocarbon exploration and the ‘potentiality’ of oil, to the marketing of refined oil and gas products, leagues of contractors and various experts are involved in the process – deriving a piece of the financial value that hydrocarbons generate in the form of compensation, fees, interest and profit sharing (Weszkalnys, 2015; Wood, 2019).…”