🛢 Vitol chief: the West has no oil inventories left to drain

Oil inventories in Western countries have been exhausted as a result of the US-Israeli war on Iran. That is the warning from Russell Hardy, CEO of Vitol Group, the world’s largest independent oil trader.

“There aren’t any more inventories to drain in the West. We drained the available inventory,” Hardy told the Energy Intelligence Forum in London on Tuesday, as reported by Bloomberg. He warned that fuel markets are likely to remain tight going into winter.

Hardy added that Gulf exports of around 12 million barrels of crude and 2 million barrels of refined products per day are all that is keeping the market balanced. “Without it, you do have that $200 per barrel scenario.”

A day earlier, the CEO of Saudi Aramco warned that less than 10% of the world’s 6 billion barrels of oil stockpiles is practically available because of logistics problems.

On Friday, the G7 and its partners announced the release of 100 million barrels of emergency reserves, after Washington pressured Europe to do more about soaring diesel prices. Hardy said the details of that release were “not fully transparent.”

All of this comes as US President Donald Trump weighs restarting major combat operations against Iran. He told Time magazine that renewed bombing after the November midterm elections is “possible,” and a third US aircraft carrier group is reportedly heading to the region.

🔴 @DDGeopolitics

https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/194861

If we cast aside common liberal framing of “Trump stupid,” the next logical step seems to be either 1) the US wants a market crash or 2) they’re genuinely caught in a vise

🇮🇷| Iran plans to upgrade all missiles, incl land & naval missiles, to hit targets farther from Iran’s shores.

Iran’s Army Spokesman said, “In this war, we came to the conclusion that we definitely need to increase the range of our missiles, and we have now moved in that direction.”

He says Iran has done very good work in terms of missile speed and precision-strike capability, and future generations of missiles will possess these capabilities to an even greater extent.

He says while the missiles that were used against US bases such as in Kuwait or against US assets in the sea were very good and effective, they have now concluded that Iran needs to increase their speed and range, because today the enemy is positioned farther away from Iran’s shores, at distances of up to 1,000 kilometers.

@FotrosResistancee

https://t.me/FotrosResistancee/24046

That’s very understandable 🫂

I hadn’t considered the relationship between high item prices, item availability and its benefit to the company, but that’s very interesting. Something similar happens in OSRS. There’s a huge price difference between mid-game, late-game and end-game gear, to the point where the average player (most of the playerbase are adults these days) really doesn’t have the time to sink into the exorbitantly long grinds to acquire either the items directly or the in-game currency needed to buy them. Buying in-game currency ends up being a no brainer for them because it’s the path of least resistance. Spend 6 months trying to get one item, or get it immediately and move on to the more interesting content.

In the case of OSRS I think the majority of actual prices aren’t so much due to market manipulation or flipping, although both do occur. There’s been some big scandals in the past involving clans and market manipulation so it’s a bannable offense. Rather, there’s a lot of item sinks that have been implemented to prevent supply getting to the point where it starts crashing the price. Regardless though the company still has the same interest, being keeping in-demand item prices reasonably high to sell in-game currency.

🇺🇸/🇮🇷 President Trump on Operation Midnight Hammer:

‘The B-2 bombers, led by the most incredible pilots, unloaded every single bomb, went right down into the air chutes, into these drug factories.

They were doing nuclear and drug. They were doing drugs, but they were doing the nuclear.

But these drug factories and nuclear factories were hit so hard.’

@Middle_East_Spectator

https://t.me/Middle_East_Spectator/37286

went right down into the air chutes

He’s literally talking about the plot of Top Gun: Maverick. Makes me wonder how long they can continue relying on cultural hegemony alone to prop up their distorted version of reality to the oil traders and masses.

❗️🇺🇸/🇮🇷 NEW: According to Axios, the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group and the 13th Marine Expediationary Unit have left San Diego Naval Base to the Middle East

The ARG consists of an amphibious assault ship, the USS Makin Island, and two amphibious transport docks, the USS Anchorage and USS John P. Murtha.

They will bring about a dozen F-35B Lightning II fighter jets and around 2200 U.S. Marines, as well as infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers.

@Middle_East_Spectator

https://t.me/Middle_East_Spectator/37263

What game was it? Lots of online games have a black market where game currency/items can be traded for actual currency, which makes me wonder if there’s value in doing a Marxist analysis of game economies (Runescape, Counter-Strike, etc). If a means of transfer exists between in-game and actual currencies it appears somewhat analogous to crypto. Although with crypto there’s not much direct labor-power involved compared to a game like Runescape where you have to manually do in-game actions in order to generate wealth.

Reminds me of this gem

I’ve found it helps a lot to be overly kind to myself during those times. Treat yourself like you would a friend who’s going through that. As much as it sucks, under capitalism it’s a totally normal situation to be in and there’s a lot of us out there experiencing the same thing - you aren’t alone. I’m in a similar spot myself.