When, due to the war in Iran-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, forecasts refer to prices of 110 to 120 dollars for a barrel of crude oil, which translates into 2.00 to 2.50 euros for a liter of diesel at the pump, we are indirectly referring to the fact that crude oil from the Arab Gulf states is only available to a limited extent and other suppliers are using this shortage to raise the price. But this is less than half the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The much bigger problem is not mentioned publicly at all. This problem is that heavy and medium crude oil from the Persian Gulf cannot be easily replaced by light crude oil from Mexico and Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The scenario of the collapse of the hydrocarbon-dependent economies of Europe, Japan, South Korea and the US is becoming increasingly likely as the oil and gas production facilities in the Gulf fail to meet demand, which in turn depends not only on the duration of the war but also on the extent of the destruction of these facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reasoning starts with the complete failure of LNG supplies from Qatar, which has already happened. This gas is the carrier of the process heat of the refineries. This means that diesel can no longer be produced from light crude oil. On the contrary, there is a surplus of crude oil (naphtha), from which even ready-made gasoline cannot be produced without the heavy feedstocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The resulting diesel fuel shortage is largely paralyzing global shipping, meaning that further processing of the crude oil is impossible due to a lack of deliveries of raw materials for blending. Tanks are full and production has had to stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US policymakers expect to be able to resolve this obstacle by accessing crude oil from Venezuela, but it is estimated that this cannot be achieved on a sufficient scale, as Venezuela\u2019s production facilities are in an absolutely miserable state and could only be turned into a sufficient source again through billions of dollars of investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why should the EU ban on imports from Russia be lifted?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Production from the Permian Basin (Texas, Mexico) must stop or be curtailed because naphtha is clogging the reservoirs, while natural gas production, which is essentially a by-product of oil production, is also being stopped from this source. However, this also means that LNG gas production will fall sharply, forcing LNG exports to be limited or stopped in order to be able to meet domestic demand. This will hit Europe hard, it will be disastrous if it cannot buy Russian gas again. This also means that the EU ban on imports from Russia must be lifted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if crude oil from the US continues to reach Europe, Europeans face the problem of being able to supply the hydrogen needed to produce diesel. Due to the increase in natural gas prices, the economic operation of these stations is no longer possible. The same goes for Japan and South Korea, whose refineries are designed for heavy crude oil and also need affordable natural gas in large quantities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China is in a much better position because of its close ties with Russia, but it depends on exports of its products to the West, which without diesel or cheap diesel will hardly be able to cope. China without exports will also find itself in crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Chain of Events that is being suppressed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a chain of events that is being suppressed or that some would prefer not to think about until the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A thick smoke of dust still hangs over the Middle East. The true extent of the damage caused cannot be estimated by analysts. No one knows today how long it will take after the end of hostilities for the flow of oil and natural gas from the region to reach the necessary level again. What can be known is the fact that each additional day of war will increase the damage and the scope and duration of repair efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And most importantly. Let no one hope that Iran will run out of missiles faster than the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How long will it be before Washington tells its allies clearly that it would be better to stop hostilities than to let not only Iran and the Gulf countries, but also its own infrastructure, domestically, in the US, not to mention Europe, collapse with each day of war due to oil and gas shortages?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When, due to the war in Iran-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, forecasts refer to prices of 110 to 120 dollars for a barrel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[825,3],"tags":[8089,25,7095,3690,1180,58],"class_list":["post-29084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-geopolitical","category-geopolitical","tag-ban","tag-eu","tag-imports","tag-lng","tag-oil","tag-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29086,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29084\/revisions\/29086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}