> Manufacturers don't actually want too many extremely long term contracts because it would limit their ability to respond to market price changes.
I don't agree with this sentence. Why would not the same apply advice to oil and gas contracts? If you look at the size and duration of oil and gas contracts for major energy importers, they often run 10 years or more. Some of the contracts in Japan and Korea are so large, that a heavy industrial / chemical customers will take an equity stake in the extraction site.Except silicon, power, and water (and a tiny amount of plastic/paper for packaging), what else does a fab need that only produces DRAM? If true, then power is far and away the most variable input cost.
> Why would not the same apply advice to oil and gas contracts?
Because oil & gas suppliers only ever sell one product, and memory fabs can dynamically switch product mix in response to supply & demand to optimize profits. The same sand, power and water can make DDR4, HBM or DDR5
Oil and gas suppliers have several products: gas, diesel, jet a, propane, naptha, asphalt etc.
Aren't the proportions is those essentially static?
Depends a lot on the oil field, geology is random
> Except silicon, power, and water
Various chemicals too, https://haz-map.com/Processes/97