Oil buffer stocks near exhausted, Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb closed
Brent crude passes $98 per barrel as Yemen attacks Saudi tankers
Physical crude is available at twice that price
China dumping U.S. Treasuries
House passes merger with Israeli military
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(2,400 words or 12 moments of your company)
Jul 23, 2026
They wouldn’t do that, would they?
War is destroying the security of food and energy supply.
The U.S. is again bombing Iran, which responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz. The establishment media is largely concealing the problem. Not necessarily by design but out of a lack of curiosity.
The cumulative loss from the Persian Gulf conflict was 1.3 billion barrels as of June, and flows through the strait had fallen from 20 million barrels per day (bpd), according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), to just 2 million during the ceasefire.
The attack on Russia’s oil refineries coincided with renewed war on Iran in February, when the U.S. and Israel killed its equivalent of pope. In the following weeks, Ukraine intensified its strikes on Russian refineries, of which half have been hit, as far as 3,000 kilometers from the front line. The U.S. is providing guidance for those attacks, while other NATO members help manufacture the drones.
Ukraine is also attacking Russian shipping, threatening its ability to export grain. In the 2010s Russia overtook the U.S. as the world’s largest wheat exporter, meeting 20 per cent of the world’s supply, including 30 per cent of Africa’s needs. [1]
This week Yemen’s Ansar Allah closed the Bab el-Mandeb strait, imposing an embargo on Saudi Arabia. The kingdom of Saud built and east-west pipeline to the Red Sea as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.
The effect will be famine. The only question is how big.
The longer war continues, the greater the chance that Iran will target the infrastructure of Gulf countries, including airports, seaports, power stations, desalination plants. In that case, West Asia (Mid East) could itself be devastated.
Who they?
They are whoever authorised the detonation of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in September 2022, placing Europe’s energy supply in critical condition. The result was to accelerate the de-industrialisation of Europe. They are whoever benefits from that.
Prof Steve Keen, of the Institute for Strategy Resilience and Security at University College, London, says up to 2 billion lives are at risk from famine. Natural gas provides hydrogen for the Haber-Bosch process, combining with atmospheric nitrogen to produce ammonia fertiliser. Phosphate-based fertiliser needs sulphuric acid, a by-product of oil and gas.
See VW On The Ropes Amid Energy Crisis - Europe’s self-harm, at war with main oil suppliers (Jul 21, 2026)
They are whoever is is putting the world economy at risk by starting, and failing to settle, the conflict with Iran.
They are whoever is ordering a bewildering level of propaganda through the media, from concealing U.S. troop losses in the Gulf, to ordering the European Commission to impose “Chat Control” on your devices, and the UK government to tell social media companies to prioritise state broadcasters in user feeds.
They are whoever has the power to manipulate the oil price to disguise the peril that is imminent.
They are whoever has pushed the Net Zero carbon agenda, while profiting from it.
See Europe’s Parallel Reality: C02 & Degrowth - Carbon is the new coloniser (May 09, 2024)
Kissinger Dies But His Plans Much Alive - Foreign policy has come home to roost; Western populations in the bullseye (Nov 30, 2023)
Price anomaly
The oil price, as measured by derivatives on the futures market, has been remarkably steady. From the sober-suited reporters on CNBC (of which I was once one) rattling off the price of Brent crude, you would not know that wars with Russia and Iran jeopardise nearly one quarter of the world’s seaborne oil and a fifth of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Prices have reacted less than in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, even though the disruption is greater. Airlines have cut tens of thousands of flights. Europe has less than one month’s supply of jet fuel on hand.
As Ron Unz comments in the Unz Review “more than four months of war and blockade had left oil prices virtually unchanged.” [2]
