English version is followed by a Persian, then a long written analysis within US “Energy Dominance” strategy.
One problem with giving a quick take on breaking news is that one can forget something. In the interview, I forgot about the US dollar swap line that the UAE had cajoled out of the USA –Trump and Bessent – just before it decided to quit OPEC. Below is the post I immediately wrote with many, IMHO, relevant issues underlying this move. These include national economic and geostrategic differences of an often rather sharp sort between the UAE and Saudis. However, the swap line issue is now included as point “Zero”.
-0.a- Regarding the swap line: As readers here know, my analysis is that the Trump administrations sharp moves against, first Russian energy together with the Ukrainians was at a point where it began threatening to take Russian oil offline, forcing Russia to shut in delicate, old West Siberian fields, much like the USA had now openly said it intends to do to Iran by blocking oil exports from its Kharg Island export terminal, likely ruining the productivity of these fields for the long term.
-0.b- You will recall that Trump constrained and/or convinced India’s Modi to halt Russian oil imports as part of this larger anti-Russian oil campaign to press Putin to end the Ukraine war.
-0.c- However, before the USA proceeded to the next step vs. Russian exports, it went to Venezuela and took control of its oil sector, beginning a comprehensive and very rapid campaign there to bring Venezuelan oil back online rapidly. This both shut off an approximately 2 million battels per day (mbd) stream of oil to China, but, moreover, diverted that oil principally to India, and that stream is now part of the USA effort to take care of India during the Iran crisis, so that it does not revert to taking Russian oil.
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