All Aboard the Gravy Train
So, who are the prime beneficiaries of this happy accident? My eyes are drawn to the lumbering, dependable workhorses of the economy, the railway companies. Think about the sheer scale of an operator like Union Pacific or CSX in the States, or Canadian National Railway. These are continent-spanning behemoths, shifting colossal amounts of goods every single day. Their engines don’t sip diesel, they guzzle it by the tanker load.
A sustained drop in the price of crude flows directly to their bottom line. Unlike airlines, which often hedge their fuel costs years in advance, railways can feel the benefit of lower prices much more immediately. Their pricing to customers doesn’t necessarily fall in lockstep, giving them a golden window to pocket the difference. They become, in effect, a leveraged play on falling energy costs, without any of the headaches of drilling for the stuff.