Crude Awakenings

18:32Will Bain:In the UK, the obligation through the International Energy agency is that we keep a 90 days supply of imports in storage somewhere within the country. Most of those are held by the private sector, by the big oil companies and the traders and so on. And the government requires them to stay at 90 days minimum. If they want to release them, they change that requirement.

18:59Gwendoline Cazanave:Maccio, what are the options here? I mean, we've heard sort of floated, haven't we, a couple of times the US suggesting that maybe they could send parts of their navy to accompany ships through the Strait of Hormuz. France kind of muting this yesterday. Is any of that realistic and how quickly could it happen?

19:16Will Bain:Yeah so you've got basically three levers that you could pull. One is to try and open the Strait of Hormuz or at least allow for more traffic. So that's you know trying to provide an escort. The US has mentioned that. France has sent a ship. But it's really hard to make this work because if you had to have one or several warships per tanker to get them through the straits, you would need many warships, which for now, American ones are busy fighting the war. The ones that are not are weeks away. So even this fact, even before you look at the practicalities of being able to defend a tanker going through the strait of Ormuz, which is really narrow, means that it's a really difficult solution to put together.

20:06Will Bain:The second lever is what we heard earlier this week, which is the release of strategic stocks. And there again, it's a limited solution because as big as the release was, as big as the release that's been considered is, which is the biggest in the history of the IEA, these reserves cannot be drawn at a particularly fast pace. At the moment, the disruption we have is about 15 million barrels a day that cannot get through. And if all countries that are members of the AIA pull at the maximum speed, it will get them to 3 million barrels a day, perhaps. So it's really just a dent in the deficit that we're facing.

20:54Will Bain:Can you explain that to people, Maciej, how that works?

20:57Gwendoline Cazanave:you know the releasing of the oil how physically like tangibly does that actually work

21:01Will Bain:so all these reserves you know in the u.s for example they're stored in in geological caverns so big salt caverns uh you know some of them underground and to get the oil out you need to pump it through pipelines and there is um a bottleneck there which you can't really um i mean you can't really get beyond that so the the pace at which you know the big number the absolute number is big but the pace at which you can bring it to market is not and that's the problem here you know the flow is quite limited because every day that we are into this war there's there's you know between 15 and 20 million barrels a day that don't get to market so that that that doesn't really move the needle that much and wayne just contextualize that then

21:46Gwendoline Cazanave:for people too the pressure that you're already under in terms of the the fuel price going up if you get this kind of again prolonged kind of delay that matches sketching out for us how quickly does that price keep ramping up from the 23 percent you're talking about to 30 40 etc um it happens almost immediately so um we're having the impact already of our carrier partners telling us that they're having to increase their prices and it's not only um kind of like road transport is starting to have an impact on air freight and sea freight as well. So we have some products out in China at the minute, and we've already been told that we're looking at cost increases of transportation of between 5 % and 15 % before that product even reaches the dock.

22:40Gwendoline Cazanave:So all of these have a knock-on effect, and that's the concern. it's the levers that we have to pull to reduce these cost increases for us are very limited because it's the same as a consumer that will have seen the impact at the pumps we've all seen it, circa 20 pence increase per litre at the fuel pumps so it's the same in commercial industry the price impacts are the same and it is immediate. So, Macha, from what you're saying, really, actually, the only thing that practically has a very quick impact is some kind of pause in hostilities or am I putting words in your mouth?

23:31Will Bain:No, absolutely. This is, I mean, the most urgent thing is to reopen the strait and the only way to do that is to pause the hostilities. And the issue there is that first it's not clear America wants to do this now. Mr. Trump is not signaling that this is what he intends in the short term. But also that it's not necessarily in America's gift to do it because even after Trump declares the war is over, Israel might decide to continue fighting and Iran might decide to make a point and to say, you know, I'm going to keep this trade close for a little longer. So I think this is what is sticking in the market now.

24:10Will Bain:This is going to last for a while.

24:12Gwendoline Cazanave:And Linda, is that the concern from a big economic perspective and the sort of runner and rider for economic decision making that just no one knows any of the timeframes here at all? There's no guessing, there's no planning that really can be done.

24:26Will Bain:Yeah, and I certainly, we see that in terms of the market reaction, for instance. We've heard, you know, as money goes towards the dollar as a safe haven, uncertainty, of course, is also what's keeping the oil prices elevated. and I think stocks are gyrating a bit because they're just uncertain. And I think the hard thing, therefore, for economic policy, the Chancellor obviously last week just stood up and gave the forecast. I'm pretty sure those are out of date, but we don't know by how much.

24:59Gwendoline Cazanave:No, I'm not going to know for some time. I mean, Jane, are any of the companies giving us a bit of a, you mentioned fertiliser, a great kind of example of something, that goes into a pretty core part of inflation, something that people can't not buy, food prices. Are there other things that big companies that you watch are kind of signaling about where prices might go?

25:19Will Bain:Well, absolutely. If you think about the food distribution chain, then you've potentially got cost hikes at every single level. So we've been talking about distribution. But again, I mentioned the fact that if you think about packaging for food, You think about that being maybe glass or you think about that being paper. They are both very high energy industries. So you have fertilizer costs. Now, to give you an example of that, if you were manufacturing grains, if you were a grain farmer, then fertilizer could be 40 to 50 percent of your variable costs. So fertilizer, very significant. But then, you know, this grain has got to be processed, which takes energy.

26:02Will Bain:It's got to be packaged, which takes energy. and it's got to be transported, which takes energy. So at every single stage, you are potentially seeing higher prices. And whilst various firms along the way will try and absorb some of those prices, if this is a prolonged conflict, then ultimately the consumer will pay.

26:22Gwendoline Cazanave:And if people want to hear a bit more in depth about the fertiliser situation, about Sean speaking to the boss of Yara, one of the biggest fertiliser companies in the world, on the programme last week, so skim back through the podcast and you'll find that and hear what's going on with that immediately. Wayne, I mean, are there things that can be done? What are you looking for? Are you looking for, presumably, you can't kind of mitigate this with just you and your partners. It's going to need, I don't know, government policy, isn't it? Government support to help the industry in the very short term, isn't it?

26:55Gwendoline Cazanave:Yeah, I think that that's certainly something that would be very welcome. I think the government came out last night or very early this morning, so David Miliband saying that the government are looking at how they can really try and influence the petroleum companies to halt these inflationary increases. And it's kind of like at that level that's required, because if you are a hauler, you're a transport provider in the UK now, as I say, immediately you've been impacted by these cost impacts. So driving in this morning, 95 % of the traffic on the road was trucks moving up and down the motorway network delivering food and drink products to UK consumers.

27:46Gwendoline Cazanave:So that has to continue. You can't reduce the number of trucks that are out there on the road. so therefore the influence that we have to mitigate these cost increases is quite limited. Good job Rachel Reeves has got some of that extra headroom Linda.

28:08Will Bain:It is actually however I think if the continuation of what we're seeing is ongoing I think the headroom could be expended pretty quickly because they're going to want to continue to protect people in terms of cost of living increases. And just one more sector, if I may kind of mention that directly affects consumers, is, of course, air travel. So airlines, we know, were pretty deeply affected by the last commodity shock. And if you look at what's happening with airlines now, they are facing fuel costs, which is making even the hedging, which is what European airlines do, it's too expensive to hedge in this environment.

28:55Will Bain:And American ones don't actually really hedge. So when you look at the impact that could have on people's – I mean, spring is coming up on people's holiday plans.

29:07Gwendoline Cazanave:And the summer's around the corner. Yeah.

29:09Will Bain:Yeah, indeed. I think, you know, I think this is going to just be another sector which is going to be deeply affected and yet really does affect people's, you know, ability to spend. I think airlines are saying initially things look OK for now, which is a good thing. And apparently people are now booking to go to the Caribbean instead for sunshine. Volumes are holding up for the moment.

29:33Gwendoline Cazanave:Yeah, we're going to talk travel in more detail in the second half of the programme. I'm actually Skyscanner going to be with us there, the booking site in the second half of Wake Up To Money. Jane, anything you'd add on the kind of broader economic outlook? And what's your thought in terms of interest rates as well? We heard Linda's kind of projection.

29:48Will Bain:Well, what's quite interesting in terms of market pricing is that the market sees the potential for rates to be maybe 10 or so basis points higher on a one year. Now, that is a significant about turn because, as we know, not very long ago, two, three weeks ago, the market was fairly confident that the Bank of England could be cutting interest rates next week. That is completely obliterated, that expectation. In fact, there had been a lot of hope that the market or the Bank of England could cut interest rates twice in the coming months, maybe March and June. Completely gone. And I would say that that shift has also been reflected with respect to other central banks.

30:27Will Bain:So, for instance, market thinking maybe Australia could hike interest rates again as soon as next week. The Federal Reserve, the market very confused now about what could happen there. So a very significant, sharp repricing in what the market is anticipating central banks will do.

30:45Gwendoline Cazanave:And, Matcha, a quick question from Gordon in Stirling, one of our listeners before we let you go. Gordon kind of asking, are you able, here you go, a difficult one for you at 27 minutes to six in the morning. Can you predict where oil will go? Could it be between$150 and$200 a barrel? Gordon says he's not at all optimistic. Read the war in the Gulf and said Trump has totally underestimated the resilience of Iran. Is it possible for people like you who watch the sector closely to know right now where it might go to?

31:16Will Bain:It's really hard to say exactly where it will go because what we are getting into now is what we call demand destruction territory. So you have to shift into a mode where prices are high enough for people not to use oil anymore. It's hard to know where it is. But I think it's really credible that it will be above 150 if this carries on for a few more weeks. Because the economy today is far less oil intensive than it was because we don't use oil to produce electricity so much anymore. But what remains is what you put into your car, what planes used to fly. And this is really hard to get rid of, to cut back on.

31:55Will Bain:So prices have to rise higher. So 150, maybe even 200, if this carries on for even longer, it's possible.

32:03Gwendoline Cazanave:Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time this morning. Really appreciate it. Mathieu Favard, Commodities Editor at The Economist. And big thanks, too, to Linda Yu, economist at Oxford University and London Business School. Wayne and Jane are going to be with us in the second half of the programme, where we are going to be talking travel, as I mentioned. We'll have Skyscanner with us about what's going on with that and prices. We're also going to hear from the boss of Eurostar on something a bit different, obviously not using oil, about their competition with Virgin Trains on the line across the channel to Paris there with international rail services there hoping to expand.

32:32Gwendoline Cazanave:And we're also going to hear a little bit of light relief from the difficult economic news we've had this morning, isn't it? A flower seller using robotics to meet the demand for Mother's Day this weekend.

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33:18Will Bain:Just go to linkedin.com slash broadcast. That's linkedin.com slash broadcast. Terms and conditions apply. It's 2009 and we're in the German mountains. A man straps himself into a car on the world's most dangerous racetrack. He whispers to himself, It's time to put my balls on the dashboard. As he starts the engine. In 15 minutes, he's in an ambulance, unconscious.

33:40Gwendoline Cazanave:In 15 years, he's a billionaire.

33:41Will Bain:This is Toto Wolff, Formula One's most powerful team boss and the breakout star of Drive to Survive. This week on Good, Bad, Billionaire, how Toto Wolff made his billions. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

33:56Gwendoline Cazanave:Wake Up To Money with Will Bane. Morning, welcome back to Wake Up To Money. Our panel this morning, Wayne Chapman, the chief executive of the global logistics firm Stassi, and Jane Foley, the head of FX strategy at the bank, Rabobank. Wayne, just hearing that in the news, I know you touched on it in the first half of the programme as well, but how important do you think this meeting then, the Chancellor and the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, with the petrol retailers today in terms of where prices can go at the pumps? I think it's huge. There's two elements to it. There's kind of like your commercial element, so there's impacts to businesses like us, but also consumers.

34:37Gwendoline Cazanave:the economy isn't great at the minute but if you have consumers who are worried about one of their biggest expenditures in terms of fuel if they start tightening the purses then it has an impact on the economy so I think that people underestimate the impact that this is happening in consumer spend and so the sooner that there's a sensible conversation the better And what would that need to look like? sort of capping where prices can go or what would be an outcome that you guys in the industry would want to see? Yeah, I think anything that kind of like calms everything down. There's obviously a lag in pricing or there possibly should be a lag in pricing and we don't see this.

35:23Gwendoline Cazanave:It has this immediate impact. So as I say, you know, businesses have longer term contracts. They tend to have stability on pricing in some areas but fuel is one of those things that we can't do. So anything which reduces the impact of this fuel increase is good for the industry and ultimately good for the consumer as well. Yeah and we're going to be talking about what it might mean in terms of air fuel prices in a moment as well. Jane, always a thorny question this but Charlie near Stonehaven has got in touch on Texas as well. Morning, this week we've been hearing that price of a barrel of oil continues to increase.

36:05Gwendoline Cazanave:Can you ask your financial analyst guests if increasing production of oil from the North Sea would have any potential to reduce price of petrol diesel and heating oil? Does Norway have large oil reserves? Don't know how much of that you can answer, Jane.

36:19Will Bain:Well, you know, we've got to say here that Europe has got pretty well diversified oil supply and actually for Europe Norway is the biggest supplier. So we also, in In Europe, and I'm not just talking about the UK here, I'm talking about the whole of Europe, we get oil from places like North Africa gas as well. Most of our gas comes from the US. So actually, not an awful lot of oil to Europe comes through the Strait of Formos. Most of that goes to Asia. The problem is, is that then you get countries in Asia potentially running up against a shortage, and then they come into the spot market and then they compete with Europe for that oil, which drives up the price.

37:04Will Bain:So even though our supplies, most of it does not come through the Strait of Hamas in Europe, we are still subject to that global price. and we have seen European gas prices being bid higher significantly too. So Norway is a significant supplier. Now, in terms of the North Sea, we reached peak production for the North Sea a couple of decades ago. And in terms of getting more of it out, well, the oil that's left in there would be a lot more expensive to get out, but you also have political motivation. So, for instance, if you were an oil company now, do you really want to front up all of that investment costs if the next government maybe comes in and says you know what we don't want oil from the North Sea because of the carbon effects we're going to go to more green power so that there are political risks associated with getting out what is left now in in the North Sea so that is not really a proper solution either well if

38:04Gwendoline Cazanave:you've got a question for our panel this morning or a comment you'd like to make 85058 is the text number to do so 08085 909693 the whatsapp let's turn to the wider travel industry then as well laura lindsey as i mentioned before the news is with us laura is a global travel expert with sky scanner laura morning thanks for hanging on the line for us morning what's the picture then this morning in terms of flights and prices that i'm guessing immediately but also into the future

38:29Will Bain:as well i guess listeners will want to know so i'd say pricing is something we watch really carefully And because there has been such a shift in demand worldwide, so we're seeing some locations increase in demand and some locations, of course, decrease in demand. That means that pricing will fluctuate in line with that demand as it is the biggest factor that determines flight prices.

38:53Gwendoline Cazanave:And is there, I mean, I'm guessing fairly obviously there are places that are more disrupted by others because they're more difficult to fly to. The Gulf aside being obviously very difficult to go there at all or people want to go there at all. But I'm guessing anyone flying east from the UK is having a difficult time.

39:12Will Bain:So what we're finding is because the airports that have been disrupted and closed are major international hubs, that is affecting particular routes. However, airlines have been very quick to use airspace and go around the affected area. And so what you find is people who are flying east, it is a slightly longer flight, but they are now able to get away in many cases.

39:37Gwendoline Cazanave:What's your sense? I mean, it was interesting hearing Jane talk about explaining the oil situation there as well and that it doesn't necessarily have to matter whether we get that oil. It's about what it does to the wider market. Is there a similar potential effect on travel, Lindsay, as well in that it might not matter whether you wanted to go on holiday to Dubai or Abu Dhabi. But the fact that those people who did want to go there now can't or perhaps won't and are looking for somewhere else to go, could that have a big impact on price in other destinations driving up demand?

40:10Will Bain:So demand is the biggest factor that affects prices. What we tend to find is that people who are flexible about where they go will be the people who will be able to get the best deals. Because if you are unable to flex on both timing and location, you are, of course, then beholden to the fare that is available. And as you say, some places, your economist mentioned that the Caribbean, for example, is where people now are looking for winter sun. you may find that some areas become more popular and therefore increased demand will increase prices that said if you are flexible there is always a way to find a fair that fits with your

40:49Gwendoline Cazanave:budget and Jane we're seeing already big impact on some of the holiday the travel companies aren't we on the beach one of the online bookers one of the biggest fallers on the on the London stock exchange yesterday down 13 percentage shares yes now they've been very wary now about you know posting their indications further out.

41:09Will Bain:Now, what they're also saying, which is quite interesting, is that destinations such as Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, bookings for there are down. That said, if you look at, for instance, Ryanair, a lot of the equity analysts are saying, well, they could be relatively well protected because of the destinations that they fly to. But it's not just about destinations when we're looking at equity in the airline space. It's also the ones that appear to be more robust. So, for instance, the companies that are more leveraged, so the ones that have more debt, are considered to be a little bit more vulnerable in this time because of the extra costs that they may incur because of not so low interest rates or maybe higher fuel prices.

41:52Will Bain:So there's a lot to pick and choose from, lots of different factors as well.

41:56Gwendoline Cazanave:And Wayne, in our kind of wider interest rate picture, consumer power, as you were kind of talking about in the first half of the programme as well, again, if these sort of things become more expensive, people become less willing to, you know, pay a bit more for other products, perhaps at home, if their holiday is costing them more, all that kind of stuff as well. Yeah, my concern is the wider impact that this has on the economy overall, and I think we're not seeing the impact of it yet. So from an inflationary perspective, then even the next announcement on inflation, which later on this month, it won't take this into account.

42:33Gwendoline Cazanave:We won't start seeing the impact on it from an inflation point of view or the reporting of it until May. but fuel is one of those things petrol, diesel is one of those things that hits people now in their pocket and therefore that has an impact on their confidence levels and how they want to spend and as I said people are wary at the minute the economy is quite fragile it's quite sluggish and therefore this is the last thing that the UK consumer and certainly Rachel Reeves wanted to see. Yeah, and given that, Laura, is it having a particular impact on budget carriers, for example?

43:16Will Bain:I'd say the biggest impact on airlines' pricing at the moment will be if they've hedged their fuel purchasing or not.

43:26Gwendoline Cazanave:So this is sort of where they sort of agree a price for a longer term, isn't it? So it doesn't move up and down. Michael O 'Leary from Ryanair, for example, saying they bought their oil, their fuel, at$68 a barrel, I think you were saying it was well into next year.

43:39Will Bain:That's right. So some airlines will protect their pricing because they've been able to buy fuel further out in advance. And some airlines don't do that. So some airlines pricing will be more immediately affected by the change in oil price than others. But we have seen from the pandemic that airlines are very quick to mitigate their cost increases because they need to remain competitive.

44:04Gwendoline Cazanave:Laura, thanks so much for your time this morning really appreciate it Laura Lindsay, global travel expert at Skyscanner there well if it's a bad time for the airlines potentially a good time isn't it for rail firms, international rail firms like Eurostar but the chief executive of that firm is urging the government to look quickly at the capacity issues to maintain new generations of trains before they come into service from their company and potentially from their rival Virgin in around five years time Virgin will be the first company to offer a rival service to Eurostar, which has operated in the Channel Tunnel since it opened in 1994.

44:37Gwendoline Cazanave:The Temple Mills Depot in East London is the only facility in the UK which can accommodate these larger trains used in continental Europe and which is already linked to the cross-channel line. Gwendolyn Kacenev, the chief executive of Eurostar, has been telling us how the company is planning to grow its fleet.

44:54Will Bain:Eurostar is bringing double-decker in the UK for the first time and at the end we'll have remaining 17 current cross-channel trains and 50 double-decker trains. So it means, and this is our project, in the future, in the 2030s, we'll have 67 trains maintained at Temple Mills. And obviously what we ask in the UK, and we had this conversation with the authorities, with the government, is about having enough space to face this growth.

45:27Gwendoline Cazanave:Because right now, what is it, Virgin? It's sort of 12, 13 trains initially, isn't it, for the start of their cross-channel operation from 2030. I mean, is there room? That's 80. Is there 80 slots in Temple Mills at the moment?

45:38Will Bain:Not right now. When you bring a new fleet, and that's what we do with our new fleet in 2015, we invested at Temple Mills. We invested close to£100 million. So for us, Eurostar, with our 50 new trains, new double-decker trains, we need to invest. And obviously new operators, Virgin, will need to invest as well.

46:00Gwendoline Cazanave:So what does it mean? Does it mean there needs to be a new depot entirely? Can that one be expanded? What's the answer?

46:06Will Bain:We know that to serve the British market, and that's what we wanted, to maintain the whole fleet in Temple Mills, we need more space.

46:16Gwendoline Cazanave:And so whose job is that to find?

46:19Will Bain:It's conversation we have with British authorities.

46:22Gwendoline Cazanave:The minister, Peter Hendy, has talked about perhaps the government leading on that with private support? I mean, does that make sense to you as being a way around that the government should lead on it and guys like you in the industry get involved with it?

46:33Will Bain:You know, sustainable travel needs infrastructure. And the British government knows that it needs this kind of infrastructure. And it needs a global political vision to develop sustainable travel. It needs a global political framework to make sure that But every operator wanting to come to serve this market will have the conditions to be able to do so.

47:01Gwendoline Cazanave:And there's an obvious urgency to that, right? Because Virgin supposedly have set a timeline. You've set a timeline and told your shareholders of a timeline of when you want this extra capacity on. There is a deadline. 2030 and the race is on to that. It suggests that this needs to be solved quickly.

47:14Will Bain:Yeah, there's a deadline because at Eurostar, our first train will be delivered. It will be on track in January 2031. So it's very soon, of course.

47:26Gwendoline Cazanave:So this is a decision that can't be delayed. It's got to be made soon.

47:29Will Bain:Our decision as Eurostar is made. We have put£1.7 billion on the table to invest in 50 new trains. We know we need to invest at Temple Mills to maintain those 50 new trains. And now it's about the global political vision to be set and to be defined.

47:50Gwendoline Cazanave:The other thing that people get very animated about whenever we talk about this is routes. And not just where they end, but where they start as well. Virgin, as part of their proposal, say, claim they're talking to Ebsfleet and Ashford and places you used to run trains through, obviously, and now no longer do. Does it change, I suppose, your outlook about where you might use, where you might go from and where you might go to?

48:11Will Bain:Our vision and what the market says and what the customers say is that they want to go further. That's why we have developed London Amsterdam. We have tripled the capacity of the terminal in Amsterdam to be now the first operator on London Amsterdam route. That's why we're going to open London Frankfurt and London Geneva. That's why we want to be where the market is and where what we call high flows, high frequencies, high capacities, high speed.

48:40Gwendoline Cazanave:Disneyland?

48:40Will Bain:We have amazing connections with the French trains to Disneyland.

48:45Gwendoline Cazanave:So not a direct one again.

48:48Will Bain:connections are great.

48:49Gwendoline Cazanave:Bad news, I'm afraid, then, if you were hoping Eurostar to come back through Kent or to Disneyland again there from the chief executive, Gwendolyn Caseneuve. What else did you take away from that, Jane?

48:58Will Bain:Well, I am a frequent user of the service from London to Amsterdam. Working for a big Dutch multidational bank. And, you know, we have to get the train right now for rubber bank employees because of the carbon effects of flying. But speaking for myself, and I think the majority of my colleagues, flying is much quicker and much cheaper. And the route to Amsterdam, by the time you've queued up also in St Pancras, it can take a very long time. So I'm not much of a fan, I've got to say.

49:35Gwendoline Cazanave:And is that the thing, Wayne? If you're going to win that sort of battle between train and plane, it's got to have more conveniences in the train. I should say, actually, we didn't leave it in that cup, But certainly Eurostar and talking with St Pancras, the station to try and speed that bit up. But is that the key, do you think? Yeah, I'm like Jane, I'm a frequent traveller to Paris and Brussels using Eurostar. I think it's a great, great service. But I think that it's clear that the infrastructure is underinvested. It's a huge opportunity to link the whole of Europe together. And therefore, there has to be this kind of like, you know, long term planning.

50:12Gwendoline Cazanave:As Jane was saying, it does take longer time-wise. The actual train journey from St Pancras to Brussels is only two hours, but you have to allow yourself at least an hour before that to go through security and so on. And St Pancras, just from my perspective, is very congested, and so significant investments required. But I think the opportunity is huge. people want to use this kind of transport solution. It's environmentally friendly. So we should be really getting behind this and investing. Yeah, and it certainly sounds like from what the people who own the station are saying that they are looking at that and trying to make it more like getting on a train anywhere else in the country as well.

50:59Gwendoline Cazanave:Let us know what you think in the last few minutes of the programme. 85058 is the text number. You both seem like organised people, planners. You got the Mother's Day flowers sorted, Wayne, already? Not the flowers. The card has definitely arrived, so my mum will say, I don't think they have the greatest postal service. She always criticised me and said, you haven't sent it, but I definitely sent it yesterday, so it's on its way, mum. Well, one of the busiest people in Britain, I think, probably this week, is Ian Collison, the director of Collison Cut Flowers, getting ready for Mother's Day. They're a supplier to the likes of M &S and Sainsbury's.

51:31Gwendoline Cazanave:Morning, Ian. Morning. How's it been? Yeah, busy, long week, but now we're getting there. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. We've got a big day of packing today, but that's uh that's it now if we were okay talk us through talk us through the numbers uh yeah so we're packing tulips predominantly at the moment few anemones but mostly just tulips

51:50Will Bain:um mother's day for us is sort of double a normal week um so we're probably going to have packed out sort of somewhere between two and a half and three million stems over the week preceding

51:58Gwendoline Cazanave:mother's day um so yeah and you're using some robotics this time to help with that because presumably um that's a lot of people otherwise yeah it's quite i mean it's quite a lot of people

52:09Will Bain:Well, the good thing with tulips is they're quite a good crop for automation. It's a big crop worldwide. So there is machinery out there on the shelf that you can buy to automate. So we've spent quite a lot of money in the last few years, several million pounds on automation, both within the glass house, but also this year we've automated the planting process. So we've got some new soft robotics in, which means when the bulbs come into us, they're pre-prepared and we can actually do the planting process completely, you know, well, almost labor free now.

52:38Gwendoline Cazanave:so the robots do the planting um so we don't have to physically touch the crop until we're at the point of harvest and what are your customers telling you that we out there want this year

52:48Will Bain:um yeah well mother's day is a big a big event for tulips so tulips are um key there's also been some challenges around um global logistics um a lot of the a lot of the flowers that we're competing against in the marketplace are being flown in um from sub-saharan africa or south america um there's obviously challenges um in the middle east but there's also been weather issues in several other parts of the world. Kenya and Colombia have both had weather issues. I think there's a particularly strong El Nino year coming and I think there's some weather issues.

53:17Gwendoline Cazanave:So we're being asked to pick up some of the slack in terms of shortages in deliveries from the rest of the world. And so when does it all chill out a bit for you? When will you finally have a nice cup of tea or a cold beer or something?

53:29Will Bain:So by the end of the day today, we should have all the Mother's Day orders packed and finished and out of the door. Obviously, they've got a day in transit and they need to be in store by, well, certainly tomorrow, but if not, then early Sunday morning.

53:42Gwendoline Cazanave:So, yeah, close the play today. We should have put everything to bed, hopefully. Great. And then on to? On to planning for Easter.

53:49Will Bain:We've got Easter only obviously three weeks away, so that's our next big event. Actually, this year is almost on a par with Mother's Day for us in terms of volume. So, yeah, Easter's just around the corner, so we start planning. Well, we started planning months ago. Yeah, we start building stock and looking to get orders firmed up

54:06Gwendoline Cazanave:for the Easter. Sounds like a brief period with the feet up. Thanks so much for speaking to us this morning. Really appreciate it and good luck. No problem, thank you. Ian Collison there, Director at Collison Cut Flowers. Big thanks to Wayne Chapman who's been in the studio this morning with us, the Chief Executive of the global logistics firm Stassi. Good luck finding your way through this as well, Wayne. We'll have you back on to tell us how it's going too. And Jane Foley, who's been with us too, Head of FX Strategy at the Bank Rabobank. Big thanks to you, of course, as well for listening to Wake Up To Money.

54:33Gwendoline Cazanave:Wake Up To Money with Will Bain.

54:40Will Bain:It's 2009 and we're in the German mountains. A man straps himself into a car on the world's most dangerous racetrack. He whispers to himself, It's time to put my balls on the dashboard. As he starts the engine. In 15 minutes, he's in an ambulance, unconscious.

54:55Gwendoline Cazanave:In 15 years, he's a billionaire.

54:57Will Bain:This is Toto Wolff, Formula One's most powerful team boss and the breakout star of Drive to Survive. This week on Good, Bad, Billionaire, how Toto Wolff made his billions. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.