Simplicius: Experts Declare Fuel Crisis Imminent as Global Wars Choke Out Supply

by Simplicius

Experts all around the world are now declaring that a major fuel crisis is upon us due to the perfect storm of catalysts, which includes Ukraine and Russia’s mutual energy strikes, as well as the sudden flare-up of the Houthi-Iran axis’s targeting of critical Saudi energy infrastructure.

WSJ reports:

American oil executives warned for months that the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz was bound to cause a fuel crisis. Now, they say it is here.

Commercial fuel stocks around the world have been depleting for more than six months, and strategic crude reserves can’t be tapped much further. Attacks last week shut down a crucial crude pipeline in Saudi Arabia that bypassed the Strait, stranding at least 2.5 million barrels a day from an already tight global oil market, analysts estimate.

The latest driver has been the news that Saudi Arabia is cancelling “crude oil cargoes” to Europe for the rest of September, with rumors now speculating that this will extend into October as well.

The past several days, the Houthis have been launching major strikes on Saudi oil infrastructure sites, which include the Aramco plant at 18.485593, 42.505660 geolocation:

BREAKING: Oil loadings suspended at Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s main Red Sea port, following the earlier attack on the east–west pipeline, Reuters report.

Oil storage tanks ablaze after a claimed Houthi missile strike on the Aramco Abha Bulk Plant north of Abha, Saudi Arabia.

18.485593, 42.505660

About 500 miles from there the Yasref oil refinery in the Red Sea coast city of Yanbu was also hit:

Meanwhile, the critical East-West pipeline meant to serve as lifeline to redirect Hormuz crude flows was seen in new Maxar satellite imagery after the attack which disabled it on September 10th. Reportedly, multiple pump stations along the long route were destroyed, making the attack far more severe than initially estimated:

It is unlikely the site will be reopened any time soon. Experts speaking to Reuters estimated several weeks, with some “partial” crude flows possible before then:

However, seeing as how easy the site was to hit, who is to say that the responsible parties—whether they were in Iraq or Yemen—could not simply keep hitting it again?

Trump has blamed the diesel crisis on Ukraine’s strikes on Russian diesel refining infrastructure:

What an incoherently lazy, hypocritically unprincipled, and outright churlish foreign policy: “Let them strike what they want, but not diesel for now, because that’s where we’re seeing major shocks!”

This type of short-sighted, bumbling diplomacy is like haphazardly putting out random fires one at a time, all while inadvertently starting new ones. Trump thinks the US can act recklessly hostile against the entire world, unscrupulously supplying weapons to Ukraine to destroy major sectors of Russian infrastructure, ruthlessly attacking Iran, etc., and then wonders why the blowback is starting to poison the domestic economy.

Now global bond yields have skyrocketed for both US and Europe, with US and UK’s 10Y note being highest since 2007, and Germany’s 10Y reportedly highest since 2006:

BREAKING: The 10Y Note Yield rises to 5.04%, its highest level since July 2007.

This pushes the average interest rate on a 30Y mortgage up to 7.17%.

Homeownership is officially a luxury. - Source

As part of his hamfistedly stilted attempt to rectify the situation, Trump announced a mutual energy ceasefire that never happened, another in a long line of fakes meant to pacify the domestic cattle:

Both Zelensky and Russian representatives have denied any such ceasefire, and as proof of this, both countries hit the other’s energy sites just this morning.

Russian analyst Victor Leonov shared an interesting theory that proposes Russia and Iran are working hand-in-hand in taking down the Western monetary and economic orders:

Why do Iran and Russia target energy facilities?

In the war in Ukraine and the tensions in the Middle East, petrol stations, oil and fuel depots, energy facilities, infrastructure, and refineries are continuously targeted by Russia and Iran. At the same time, transportation and energy routes such as the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab are completely shut down. Why is this happening? Why are Russia and Iran doing this in coordination, and what is their objective?

The answer to these questions comes from the fact that Russia and Iran have agreed together to destroy the Western and American capitalist system, by creating an energy crisis through targeting energy facilities and transportation routes. The equation works like this: attacking and destroying these facilities reduces energy production and supply, while closing the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab similarly reduces supply and availability on a global level.

As a result, fuel and energy prices in general begin to rise and surge. Rising prices mean that greater pressure is placed on the global industrial sector, which must secure fuel at much higher prices. At the same time, transportation costs also rise and economic inflation begins to increase. As a result, central banks are forced to raise interest rates in order to control inflation, which in turn slows and weakens the economy. In this way, production and factory activity gradually weaken, while the industrial sector faces a major threat.

Through this method, Russia and Iran are putting industry, economic growth, and the current world order at risk, to the point where factories may shut down and industry, in its current form, may no longer be able to continue. Since industry is the foundation stone of modern capitalism, step by step the current world order moves toward collapse as an energy crisis develops.

Therefore, Russia and Iran want to use this path to bring down and transform the current world order, which is led by the United States in a unipolar manner. For this reason, expect further bombing of petrol stations, oil, gas, and fuel depots, along with more attacks on energy facilities and infrastructure.

I’m not convinced this is such a coordinated operation to “take down capitalism”, but it’s an interesting direction of thought, particularly considering that Iran and Russia are able to bolster their own eastward trade routes while simultaneously stymieing the West’s economic life lines. More likely, Russia and Iran are simply reacting defensively to hurt their opponents at their most sensitive points. Russia was happy to supply energy to the West to keep the Western “capitalist order” churning along, up until Ukraine began to put the pain on Russia’s own energy infrastructure.

The daily rental rate for a supertanker on the route from the Persian Gulf to China has reached $1 million for the first time in history.

Now as of this writing, various reports claim that the Houthis have mined Bab al Mandab, which would appear to be in contradiction to their previous claims that only Saudi transports are prohibited from transiting:

If the reports are true—in conjunction with the wide-scale strikes on Saudi oil infrastructure—it could represent a pronounced campaign to deliver an economic deathblow to the Saudi regime.

One thing is for certain, while Trump continues to treat the Iran conflict as some kind of casual diversion or vanity playground, Iran is taking things to the extreme. For Iran, the conflict is existential, notably demonstrated by two recent items:

First: Reports are circulating that Iran is preparing to mobilize up to one million people for training, for the creation of 1,000 reserve battalions dubbed the “national resistance battalions” in preparation for possible future conflict.

In corroborating the above news, Jerusalem Post reports that billboards have been going up all over Iran promoting the joining of the IRGC.

Jerusalem Post writes of the new campaign:

Volunteer call to mobilize the youth

Macmillan stressed that Iran was attempting to mobilize youth with the messaging, offering weapons training, map reading, and first aid skills needed for combat zones, as part of a campaign to expand Basij-style units beyond the “usual core” supporters.

The new brand of fighters will demonstrate to Iranians and the West that the regime “can still organize mass participation after months of tension,” despite the economic turmoil, war, and violent suppression of protests, he said.

“It is a volunteer call, pushed through official channels and mass SMS. This is an official Iranian government campaign infrastructure, a political-military mobilization message, not a neutral public-service notice,” he noted.

Secondly, Iranian news sources report that a prominent Iranian MP has claimed that an “urgent bill” has been prepared by a group of lawmakers for Iran’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act. The bill reportedly will be voted upon once the parliament’s “presiding board approves it”.

The most striking portion of the MP’s interview is his direct call for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, given that the US’s aggression has caused this to be an “unavoidable necessity”:

“It is better to conduct the necessary tests for nuclear weapons as soon as possible” because Iran needs nuclear deterrence and possessing nuclear weapons is now an “unavoidable necessity.”

Granted, we must not overreact, as such firebrand lawmakers have come before and the initiative will likely lead nowhere, particularly since Iran’s President Pezeshkian has continued to position himself against the acquiring of nukes. But it all goes to show that Iran’s leaders and people are hardening, solidifying around a unified core, and are treating the US-Israeli axis’s attacks on their country as an existential threat that must be dealt with like a cancer, rather than a vanity show for PR ratings.

In light of this, a series of new photos have been ‘leaked’ by CBS showing never-before-seen scenes of destruction in US bases after Iranian attacks:

Mario Nawfal reports the list of destroyed assets:

Active service members sent the images anonymously.

One soldier's words: "We're not defending these bases. We're just watching them get destroyed."

What the photos reportedly show:

-Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia: an E-3 Sentry with its tail severed from a charred fuselage

-Prince Sultan Air Base: hollowed-out buildings and barracks standing beside untouched concrete T-walls, fortifications built for mortars and grenades in a war fought from 300 miles up

-Camp Buehring, Kuwait: rows of trailers destroyed at the main staging area for Army ground troops and armor

-Camp Buehring: vehicles burned out in the open

-Camp Arifjan, Kuwait: structural damage to a building at the largest American logistics hub in the region

-The IG counted nearly 60 aircraft lost and $3.7 billion in equipment across eight countries.

Hegseth called the missiles that killed six at Shuaiba "squirters," a word for the odd one that slips past a working defense.

These photos say the defense isn't working, and the people inside the wire know it.

Source: CBS News / Writer: Daniel

Compilation of the “leaks”:

A new Pentagon report lists the failed war’s “official losses”:

Some analysts have crunched the numbers and reportedly derived that Operation Epic Fury’s per-sortie losses were some of the highest in US history:

It’s clear that Iran is only just getting going, and Trump’s historic blunder has ignited a national renewal that is unlikely to slow ever again, now that the genie has been let out the bottle, and US’s unprecedented vulnerability has been exposed.

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