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Fuel Blocks
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Servjen
Giant Industrials
Center for Digital Chemistry
#1 - 2012-02-03 15:09:46 UTC
Hey,

Is it a profitable fenu to make fuel blocks with PI products i make miself and buying the ice stuf of market?

This is where I put my signature, right?
Jacob Lyon Chieve
Sanguis Mortem Industrial
#2 - 2012-02-03 15:13:43 UTC
In short: Add up the cost of all the items based on buy orders and you'll quickly have your answer.

Most likely, the answer is yes. But that varies based on region, productivity of the planets you are setup on, how many accounts/alts you have producing (I don't BELIEVE that a single toon is capable of enough PI for the whole ingredient list). There's a lot of factors at play and I don't think anyone can give you a 100% certain answer.

Again, add up the cost of everything via market, and be sure to include the manufacturing time it will take and the install cost.

Need to know how much ore to mine in order to yield a certain order of minerals? https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=67477 It will even calculate how long you can expect for it to take!
Derath Ellecon
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2012-02-03 15:17:38 UTC
Right now probably yes. I don't have the numbers handy, but I believe I am saving at least 50mil a month to fuel a medium POS by bringing the materials in and making the fuel blocks onsite vs buying blocks on the market. I'd say blocks right now seem to have about a 20% markup over the raw material input costs. (not accounting for waste, build time and expenses etc).
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#4 - 2012-02-03 16:17:17 UTC
Look at them on my calculator ;)

Simple answer is, yes, it's profitable. Not a huge margin, but it's there. around 2k a block or so.

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter
VaMei
Meafi Corp
#5 - 2012-02-03 18:17:12 UTC
Jacob Lyon Chieve wrote:
Again, add up the cost of everything via market, and be sure to include the manufacturing time it will take and the install cost.


That via market part is important to maximize your profits. If you figure your profits based on your actual input costs and only look at the value of the finished product rather than the value add of each production step, you may well overlook the possibility that you could earn more profit simply selling your raw materials or intermediate parts to someone else.

What I generally do (not with fuel blocks, but the premise holds) is to keep a full chain production line ready to run, but I only do the portions of that production chain that are profitable today. In a 5 step production chain, I may sell after steps 1 & 4 this month and buy materials from market to replace the materials I would have produced, where last month running full chain was the most profitable thing to do.

e.g. for Fuel Blocks, Robotics would be part of your production chain. You may well do better to buy Robotics from market, and sell your surplus Mech Parts, Toxic Metals & Chiral Structures. In many markets, given the surplus of Robotics available the process of building Cons Elect to use in Robotics is less profitable than selling the parts & buying the Robotics. Your mileage may vary based on your logistics concerns and market access, but that's what many producers are seeing in the current environment.
Celgar Thurn
Department 10
#6 - 2012-02-04 16:36:43 UTC
Industrialists were running fuel contracts with POS owners prior to the fuel blocks being introduced so I see no reason for that to have changed now. I'm sure there is still profit in it as well. You just have to do the maths and offer your services.
Scrapyard Bob
EVE University
Ivy League
#7 - 2012-02-05 05:36:40 UTC
Derath Ellecon wrote:
Right now probably yes. I don't have the numbers handy, but I believe I am saving at least 50mil a month to fuel a medium POS by bringing the materials in and making the fuel blocks onsite vs buying blocks on the market. I'd say blocks right now seem to have about a 20% markup over the raw material input costs. (not accounting for waste, build time and expenses etc).


Those margins won't last (and are almost already gone in Jita).

Making fuel blocks requires no special skills, the BPOs are dirt-cheap (9M ISK raw, 20-25M researched via contracts), and the production rate is extremely high (you can make 400M of fuel blocks in about 24h).

Which means the equilibrium point for fuel blocks will very quickly end up around 10-20M per manufacturing slot per week up to maybe 30-50M per slot per week in the less competitive areas. That sounds like a lot of ISK/week for what is basically T1 manufacturing, but the margins will be thin (under 4-5%) which means if input costs go up or prices drop you could suddenly be underwater.

Approximate prices at the moment:

Amarr - 12.4k to make, Jita 5% sell is 13.9k, about 12%
Cald - 12.7k to make vs 14.2k sell - 12%
Gall - 14.2k to make vs 15.9k sell - 12%
Minny - 13.4k to make vs 14.9k sell - 11%

http://www.evemarketeer.com/item/group_summary/1413
Purehydro
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#8 - 2012-02-06 08:26:48 UTC
Fuel blocks were the best thing ever given to hardcore industrialists. If you master the supply chain, it's like a spigot shooting out ISK. Unfortunately everyone else is figuring this out and profit margins are declining. Fortunately POS's are everywhere and they need fuel and fuel is large and bulky. I enjoyed the week of 50% profit margins. Cry
Mavnas
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#9 - 2012-02-06 19:42:39 UTC
Purehydro wrote:
Fuel blocks were the best thing ever given to hardcore industrialists. If you master the supply chain, it's like a spigot shooting out ISK. Unfortunately everyone else is figuring this out and profit margins are declining. Fortunately POS's are everywhere and they need fuel and fuel is large and bulky. I enjoyed the week of 50% profit margins. Cry


Yeah, but when a single person can make a trade hub's volume with a fraction of their capacity those margins can't last Sad

To really be the best thing they'd have to be just complex enough that you can enjoy a decent margin in the medium-term. That said, I'm noticing that I could potentially generate value at various stages of that production process. (For example manufacturing the required P3 commodity from bought P2s). If enough people get into the fuel block making stuff, PI prices may go up a bit which I suppose is good?
Purehydro
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#10 - 2012-02-07 07:36:59 UTC
Mavnas wrote:
To really be the best thing they'd have to be just complex enough that you can enjoy a decent margin in the medium-term. That said, I'm noticing that I could potentially generate value at various stages of that production process. (For example manufacturing the required P3 commodity from bought P2s). If enough people get into the fuel block making stuff, PI prices may go up a bit which I suppose is good?

The party is over as soon as one NS Alliance industrial group realizes what they can do. Tin foil hat theory is when goons get a chance to leverage the space they have to basically corner the fuel block market. Any other alliance could do so as well, but goons seem to have the best infrastructure and set up for such things.

When the war ends, expect some fluctuation in the fuel block market.
Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#11 - 2012-02-07 20:09:39 UTC
Purehydro wrote:
Tin foil hat theory is when goons get a chance to leverage the space they have to basically corner the fuel block market. Any other alliance could do so as well, but goons seem to have the best infrastructure and set up for such things.

When the war ends, expect some fluctuation in the fuel block market.

Eh, sounds like fun ...

Except wouldn't we need to hoard them because soon highsec will run the first ever Goon POS Fuel interdiction, which will cut us off from the empire POS fuel market, leaving us open and vulnerable to a whole lot of POS bashing?

What no? (I actually have no damn idea how the POSses are fueled, just FYI).

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?
Purehydro
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#12 - 2012-02-08 06:30:01 UTC
Alavaria Fera wrote:
Purehydro wrote:
Tin foil hat theory is when goons get a chance to leverage the space they have to basically corner the fuel block market. Any other alliance could do so as well, but goons seem to have the best infrastructure and set up for such things.

When the war ends, expect some fluctuation in the fuel block market.

Eh, sounds like fun ...

Except wouldn't we need to hoard them because soon highsec will run the first ever Goon POS Fuel interdiction, which will cut us off from the empire POS fuel market, leaving us open and vulnerable to a whole lot of POS bashing?

What no? (I actually have no damn idea how the POSses are fueled, just FYI).
Goons have some smart people and were one of the first to realize the potential of POCO's. This is why you see Mittani selling the alliance on doing PI for free money. A large busy alliance with many players pulling PI will lead to a lowering of price as the demand supply curve shifts to a higher supply than demand allows. This allows the industrial base who can ignore the taxes to make cheap p2 and p3 for fuel blocks. They also have access to dark glitter and the miner gangs to mine it in boatloads. The last part is goon investment bank(SP?) which can periodically crash the market creating their own ups and downs and selling/buying as the opportunity presents itself. They have to have at least a few people who do quantitative analysis and can turn it for EVE.

For fun, you can run an ice interdiction like the very successful one against Gallente Ice. That was pure genius.

As far as running an interdiction against the goons, I don't know anything about that. This is just idle speculation on my part about the fuel block market.
Hans Hoff
Mine n Mellow
#13 - 2012-02-08 10:16:59 UTC
To the OP
The question about profitability depends on your own deffinition.
Most actions in eve reward in ISK.
By personal experience I have found that although I can make 50 mills per hour by running missions and salvaging, there is another hour wasted in logistics which reduces the ISK/hr profit.
Fuel blocks seem to sell for arround the 15K mark and the components around 10% under that. If you are a new toon and only make around 3 or 4 mills per hour then yeah go for it. If you are a seasoned vet who can make over 100 mills per hour then why waste valuable mouse clicks when you could be doing something else?
Gustavus Adolphus
Croatoan Enterprises
#14 - 2012-02-08 15:35:17 UTC
Jacob Lyon Chieve wrote:
In short: Add up the cost of all the items based on buy orders and you'll quickly have your answer.

Most likely, the answer is yes. But that varies based on region, productivity of the planets you are setup on, how many accounts/alts you have producing (I don't BELIEVE that a single toon is capable of enough PI for the whole ingredient list). There's a lot of factors at play and I don't think anyone can give you a 100% certain answer.

Again, add up the cost of everything via market, and be sure to include the manufacturing time it will take and the install cost.


1 toon in NPC Null, running 5 planets, can make enough PI for about 200 print runs in 8 or 9 days, depending on if you micro manage the planets or if you are lazy like me and only run 24 hour cycles
Mavnas
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#15 - 2012-02-08 21:54:51 UTC
Alavaria Fera wrote:
Purehydro wrote:
Tin foil hat theory is when goons get a chance to leverage the space they have to basically corner the fuel block market. Any other alliance could do so as well, but goons seem to have the best infrastructure and set up for such things.

When the war ends, expect some fluctuation in the fuel block market.

Eh, sounds like fun ...

Except wouldn't we need to hoard them because soon highsec will run the first ever Goon POS Fuel interdiction, which will cut us off from the empire POS fuel market, leaving us open and vulnerable to a whole lot of POS bashing?

What no? (I actually have no damn idea how the POSses are fueled, just FYI).


It'd be really hard to shut this down any more than they did in the last round of ice miner bashing. I mean it's basically fairly simple PI stuff + Ice. There's nothing particularly fancy in the fuel blocks. Really the ice is the weak spot because that's what fuel blocks are mostly by volume.