Why the hell aren't these chuckleheads on Bloomberg where they belong?
Hard to see a harbormaster with a Bloomberg terminal.
I absolutely see the reason for the ops side to be on YIM. But the traders? At the end of the day, in well regulated markets, that's just asking for trouble when the regulators come calling.
Lets say there's some problem at a port (bad weather, labor strike, whatever) that causes delays in the delivery of (other people's) oil, traders are still going to be interested because it will push up the price, even though if they're not taking delivery from that particular ship.
Speculation on price is not done by taking paper positions in one direction, but by limiting or increasing your paper hedge, aka trading the "basis" or margin between your physical and your paper.
The physical side requires a fair amount of "RTFC" ("caring what the harbormaster is saying") and being aware of operations.
As an example we were given in training, one of our grains trader went to inspect a ship before loading it with grain, and the local guy thought something was dodgy so he closed the doors, and shone his torch at the walls. Thousands of "stars" blinked back at them. Turns out the ship had been used recently to carry broken glass, which obviously made it highly unsuitable for grains.
But the more common stuff is e.g. overloading the ship on one side so that it leans on the side you know the controller will measure the load, or playing with the percentage admixture (basically dead beasts and dirt) to net yourself a bit more margin.
These are physical traders -- they actually have a heavy workload in terms of communicating with everyone associated with delivery.
Boat captains, harbormasters, mine supervisors, you name it.
Not using a free IM service like Yahoo's seems like a fiduciary sin.