Even mainstream media outlets are reporting that food and gasoline rationing could be possible. We are not going to escape the cost of sanctions, as Biden himself said, so prepare now before things worsen.
We began warning that this was incoming back in 2020 when the lockdowns got the ball rolling. Everything that has happened since then has only helped shove the lack of food into overdrive.
Food Shortages Becoming As Obvious As The Higher Prices
And now, it’s not just food, but fuel to transport the food as well. Russell Hardy, chief executive of Vitol, the oil trader, says Europe is about to reap the whirlwind of its “systemic shortfall” of diesel fuel. About half of European diesel imports come from sanctions-hit Russia, according to The Financial Times.
The economic fallout is beginning to get hard not to notice. Sanctions and other supply-chain disruptions have sent consumer prices surging across the world as oil and other commodity prices have spiked. Soaring gas and diesel prices are also adding to the cost of food, heightening fears that the world is on the brink of a hunger crisis.
Some European governments are preparing citizens for sacrifices. If Russia retaliates against its enemies by shutting off the pipelines that supply a majority of Germany’s natural gas, wider energy shutdowns are likely. Priorities next winter would be decided “politically”, according to the German economy minister. Meanwhile, Ireland is resorting to “wartime tillage” incentives to grow crops that could ease a potential food supply crunch. –The Financial Times
The problems persist and the rationing of everything from food to fuel is likely in the coming year. Especially considering what can be noticed as higher prices for food and fuel in the United States and other parts of the Northern hemisphere, could result in an actual famine for those in the southern hemisphere.
Be aware and remain prepared. Stock up when you can. It won’t take much more strain on the already delicate food supply chain to demolish it for good. Rationing and forcing compliance with certain things in exchange for food or fuel is a possibility too. Be in a position to say no to the rulers, but of helping your fellow human beings who cannot or did not prepare.
Yes, rationing of diesel/fuel oil/kero/jetfuel (middle distillates) looks to be imminent. The biggest fuel from a barrel of crude is gas, then middle distillates. But it is a worldwide shortage, not just US. Light tight oil makes even less of the middle fractions. Heavy oil is needed for those. So the US cuts it’s own throat by sanctioning the countries that produce the heavier oil. Russia is gone. Venezuela and Iran, too.
Now we hear that Mexico will be shutting the taps. Mexico is the number 2 supplier of crude and oil products to the US behind Canada. But they plan to reduce their supply to the US by 1/2 this year and stop it completely by 2023. Their new refinery will be done then and they plan on using all the 2 million barrels per day that they produce for their own population.
Uh Oh…looks like the Export Land Model strikes again. As geologist Jeffrey Brown predicted 10 years ago, as producers develop their own economy and use more oil, more and more will keep their oil for themselves to use and there will be less and less on the market for those countries needing to import oil for their economy.
Soon those F 350 crew cabs will be sitting at the end of the driveway…out of fuel.
JRS
To add some chaos in this there were significant changes to oil refining in the US in the last two decades. Prior to fracking the availability of light sweet crude was less and it sold at a premium. The refineries that could process heavy sour (high sulfur) crude displaced much of the sweet refining capacity. Once fracking became more prevalent dramatically increasing the sweet light crude supply this shifted back making it more economically feasible to have increased sweet crude refining. Sour crude refineries tend to “flash off” the light sweet crude into vapor and have required blending of crude oil heavy viscus sour with light sweet. A lot of the old sweet crude refineries were shut down and scrapped leaving an increasing percentage of sour crude refineries to handle the US fracked sweet crude. In comes the dynamics of the progressives curtailing as much of US sweet crude production as possible. The refining industry is once again in modification with the operative imputes being chaos not knowing where (and if) refining is headed. Venezuela has the greatest supply of crude oil and it is of the heavy sour crude type.
Hello Kevin. You’re the right person to explain how the refining industry operates here in the US. I hear you have plenty of experience in the business. Thanks for jumping in. Hope you’re doing well.
Why have productive wells been capped?
Darth Skippy
My knowledge is in Refining not E&P (exploration and production) but I know a little. Generally however, if government stands out of the way, when crude prices rise more capacity goes on stream. Fracking is generally an expensive way to get crude oil but its quality for gasoline production is outstanding requiring minimum refining. The fracked wells tend to exhaust themselves relatively quickly compared to the classic huge pool of crude traditionally sought after and largely already found in E&P. Fracked oil is generally transported by rail car which is quite expensive because pipelines haven’t been laid from source to refinery and the aforementioned exhausting of fracked wells necessitating more fracking. I think the industry is in chaos and is insecure regarding future demand and therefore unwilling to expend significant capital. Increasing capacity in refining is being done on the cheap. The refinery I retired from, a lube and fuel facility, shut down its fuels units and barged it to a sister refinery for processing as COVID dramatically cut demand. Now with “normality” returning in demand there was a plan to restart and significantly upgrade / increase the gasoline / fuel oil units. This was cancelled and the previously shut down units are being restarted (hiring back the skilled operations staff) but having no upgrade. The “fixes” are being done on “the cheap” as opposed to long term capital intensive.
No offense is intended toward present company, per se.
But, venture capital can be imagined into existence.
Also, prices climb dramatically at point of sale.
Imagined or not capital is not coming into the refining sector. I’m not knowledgeable on the business side of crude pricing which is the great cost. Refining is a feast or famine business that the majors have to a great degree sold to refining only companies. Refining has the greatest risk and the least reward.
Reason for Biden sabotaging the economy seems clear now—implement a QR code requirement to buy or sell in the market, a mark of the beast system.
Gas and food will be too expensive. Biden will use vouchers tied to your unique identifier. Based on your social credit score you’ll be able to buy more or less things. Higher carbon footprints will be taxed, and you’ll receive less. This is already happening with inflation (which is a growing problem that shrinkflation can’t hide.
Some of us were surprised with Biden’s casual aside that food scarcity was coming. Now we see this is an imminent decree. By creating artificial scarcity, the rulers in Kapitol can decide whether you and your family can eat.
No crisis goes to waste; they’re creating one after another to distract from their complicity in the prior manufactured crisis. Now we lurch from Covid and the ongoing failure of the response (mytocarditis-causing viral vector dna-changing spike proteins) to the next one—Ukraine, also entirely manufactured.
Deport so many replacement demographics — until we know what is biology — and see whether there’s enough food, gas, and money to go around.
In New Mexico they are voting next week to issue monies to the citizens for $350.00 singles and $700.00 for married to help with the cost of high gasoline prices and this is jtus a ploy to BUY votes since this is a Democrat controlled state and they are scared of losing so they are pulling out all the stops to buy votes for the midterm elections. I hope they LOSE by millions of votes!
A54 – Yup, buying votes. The voters need to ask, Who is paying for all this? I guess if you can’t win on the issues you just buy them.
Welcome to the U.S.S.A. The Union of Socialist States of America.
We need to return to the 55mph speed limits that saved us from shortages last time we had supply problems.
Who cares. There’s too many fat people slobbering around. They can stand to lose a few pounds. Get off their fat asses and do something useful in the world for a change.