Didn’t Want That Strait Anyway

The Iran war narrative keeps changing at a dizzying pace, like a toddler hopped up on Mountain Dew. One moment everything is fine, the next tankers are on fire, and the next it is being renamed The Strait of America which makes complete sense. Last week Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took this to the next logical step, claiming that we didn’t want that Strait anyway and it would be obsolete in just a couple of years….

Bessent Says Hormuz Will Be “Worthless Piece of Water” In Two Years

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the audience at the Group of 20 finance ministers’ meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, that Iran’s ability to weaponize the Strait of Hormuz will be reduced to zero because “oil will be going through pipelines across the land.”

“Iranians are trying to use the Strait of Hormuz as a chokepoint. It’s not a chokepoint for the US, but it is for many other countries. That will be bypassed in 2 years. In 2 years, the Strait of Hormuz will be a worthless piece of water. The oil will be going through pipelines across the land,” Bessent said.

Bessent’s comments this morning should come as no surprise to readers, since we’ve detailed the existing pipelines that bypass Hormuz and the new pipeline projects planned by allied Gulf producers.

Oh well that is a relief! The Zerohedge story was accompanied by this graphic, pay attention to the yellow line indicating an oil pipeline (in the blogging world we call that “foreshadowing”)

Keeping in mind that I have no military experience and am not a strategic mastermind of any sort, still I have to say when I read that last week I was skeptical because it seems to me that anything fixed in place (like a pipeline) is awfully vulnerable and a lot easier to hit than a moving ship, even a slow one like an oil tanker.

Then look at the pipeline path from Abqaiq to Yanbu. That is a whole lot of mostly empty desert….

Call me alarmist but that doesn’t seem like a great idea if you are concerned about attacks on the oil supply.

Sho nuff….

US, Saudi Officials Confirm Kingdom’s East-West Pipeline Attacked By Drones Out Of Iraq

No one could have predicted this!

Open source satellite imaging has shown the crucial ‘Hormuz bypass’ East-West oil pipeline that cuts straight across Saudi Arabia has been on fire. A some 80km to 100km giant smoke plume has been observed. The damaged section is said to be located near the town of Al Mesba’ah.

The smoke plume was visible from space…

As this is happening the Houthis have apparently seized the entire Red Sea coast of Yemen including Perim Island/Mayyun which is clearly a strategically important island….

This could mean that the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea are now very vulnerable.

The Saudi pipeline is now closed according to reports: “Riyadh In Difficult Position”: Saudis Shutter Critical East-West Pipeline After Drone Attacks

If you listen to the administration and MAGA plan trusters, this doesn’t matter and oil is flowing from the Middle East like never before. Checking in with Grok and utilizing non-U.S. shill sources, that isn’t exactly true.

From almost 50 tankers per day last Sept/Oct to less than 2.5 per day in August and so far in September. While we are told that all is well, all is in fact not well at the pump with Labor Day weekend gas prices the highest they ever have been recorded. We went from gas prices under $3/gallon to pretty consistently over $4 every since this stupid war kicked off.

While most of us use regular gas, diesel prices are through the damn roof hitting an all-time high.

That isn’t a big deal, it isn’t like everything we buy is transported by trucks using diesel or by trains pulled by engines that are powered with diesel.

Some of the high diesel prices also has to do with Russian diesel production being heavily damaged by Ukrainian drone attacks aided by U.S. intelligence and the fact that U.S. refineries are running at 98% capacity with basically no room to increase production after years of shutting down new refinery construction.

This will ripple throughout the economy. Everything will cost more to make and sell. Local Amish pallet shops are paying more for lumber because it costs more to truck the lumber to their shops and in turn they are raising prices and adding fuel surcharges to loads going to customers. That is just one supply chain component but it applies to everything.

While a major campaign issue in 2024 was inflation, the Trump 2.0 administration has made everything much worse as a result of the foolish attack on Iran. Our continued support of the Zelensky regime in Ukraine in a war they cannot win isn’t helping either. Now the Orange Man is talking about giving everyone $5,000 if the Republicans retain control of Congress in November, despite there being no money for that and that injecting a trillion and a half bucks into the hands of consumers paid for by debt would cause inflation to skyrocket even more. Anyway we are still waiting on the last few promised checks from Trump. Any day now….

It might not feel like it right now but things are much worse than anyone is letting on and the seemingly endless credit fueled consumption model can’t keep the lid on forever.