Capital is never free. Someone wants their money back, whether it is a private owner, shareholders, or the bank. The mortgage cost is a handy estimate.
Shareholders don't need to be returned the money. If they need it back, they sell the sares. What they expect is either dividends or see their shares rise in price before selling them.
In order to sell to consumers we also have to have a retail operation, like a gas station, with tanks, pumps, rent for space, and more staff.
Not if the skimmer is part of starport assets, as it would be sold directly to the customers (and is a must if you want to maintain your rating as a starport). Of course you need some infrastructure, but I guess costs would be minimal (in comparison), and can be sared among various such ships.
Or we can try financing from the stock market.
We issue MCr 2000 in stock. We buy a ship for MCr 1955. It takes 3 years to build, so we lose money for three years without any income.
Those 3 years would only be for the first ship, and the only costs while it is build are shareholders dividends. In such a long term busines, it's not rare to specify in the contract that no dividends will be given until the business start to run.
Yearly costs:
Fuel is free, since we skim.
Life Support 50 / 2 × kCr 2 × 47 ≈ MCr 2.35
Salaries: 47 × 12 × kCr 3 × 300% ≈ MCr 5
Maintenenace: ~MCr 2
Total yearly costs: 2 + 5 + 2 ≈ MCr 10
Why the 300% in salaries?
In a going concern, we have to save some money to buy a new ship when the old one is worn, say after 40 years (aka depreciation). MCr 1955 / 40 ≈ MCr 49 / year.
You're right. I forgot this one before, and it's quite considerable, as you say. My fault
The shareholders expect some dividends, say 5% or MCr 2000 × 5% ≈ MCr 100.
Dividends are not fixed, but depend on the business results, so I will caclulate them latter, as a final step.
So we need to earn MCr 10 + 49 + 100 ≈ MCr 159 / year. Divided by 224000 dT that is Cr 709 / dT refined fuel.
So we need MCr 10 (accepting your 300% in salaries, 6 otherwise) + 49 so about MCr 59 per year-
Accepting you numbers (224000 dtons of fuel delivered per year), your cost is 263.34 Cr/dton. If you sell them at 500 (as is refined), you end up with about MCr 53 as anual benefit.
To make numbers easy (and to keep some money as reserve), let's say MCr 50 are paid as dividends. The would mean Cr 25000 per share per year, or 2.5%. Not bad in an inflation free (or nearly so) economy as Traveller's is depicted for a long term investment...
The retail operation is in addition to this. Again we cannot sell refined fuel for Cr 500 to consumers.
Why not?
I already told about the retail, but if you add them then the dividends can be a little lower (let's say 2%, still not bad in such an economy). And I guess in most cases the main (if not only) shareholder will be either the Starport company or the planetary government, that will not be on it for profit (though they won't complain on it).
After all, excepting subsized merchants (but we kept subsides out of equation here, even while they are not ruled out, if the planet needs to maintain its fuel source to keep the Starport Rating) , what Traveller merchant owner can expect a constant 2.5% yearly benefit over his initial investment (the ship)?
That would mean about KCr 927 yearly benefit on a free trader (cost MCr 37.08, according LBB2)...
Note that the estimates I have made are "best case". They leave no room for malfunctions, acts of god, or labour action. E.g. if the power plant breaks down, or we collide with something the ship spends a few months in the yard and we go bankrupt.
That's what insurances are for.
And, in any case, you're not expected to have a single such ship, but probably several in opperation if the starport receives any traffic to buy fuel, and the temporary loss of one of them would affect the business, but not necessarily send you to banckrupcy. Thats why the dividends are not fixed, and the risk the shareholders accept.
