ZOG strategy made clear: ZOG NEEDS WAR W. RUSSIA to maintain Petro-Dollar (currency used for oil-sales)

Apollonian

Guest Columnist
US Needs Ukraine War to Maintain Global Hegemony

•US wants to maintain full spectrum dominance, thwart multipolar world

•For that it needs a weak Russia and Ukraine war is the way to do it

Link: http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/02/06/3216


Mike Whitney

“I want to appeal to the Ukrainian people, to the mothers, the fathers, the sisters and the grandparents. Stop sending your sons and brothers to this pointless, merciless slaughter. The interests of the Ukrainian government are not your interests. I beg of you: Come to your senses. You do not have to water Donbass fields with Ukrainian blood. It’s not worth it.”

— Alexander Zakharchenko, Prime Minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic

Washington needs a war in Ukraine to achieve its strategic objectives. This point cannot be overstated.

The US wants to push NATO to Russia’s western border. It wants a land-bridge to Asia to spread US military bases across the continent. It wants to control the pipeline corridors from Russia to Europe to monitor Moscow’s revenues and to ensure that gas continues to be denominated in dollars. And it wants a weaker, unstable Russia that is more prone to regime change, fragmentation and, ultimately, foreign control.


These objectives cannot be achieved peacefully, indeed, if the fighting stopped tomorrow, the sanctions would be lifted shortly after, and the Russian economy would begin to recover. How would that benefit Washington?

It wouldn’t. It would undermine Washington’s broader plan to integrate China and Russia into the prevailing economic system, the dollar system. Powerbrokers in the US realize that the present system must either expand or collapse. Either China and Russia are brought to heel and persuaded to accept a subordinate role in the US-led global order or Washington’s tenure as global hegemon will come to an end.

This is why hostilities in East Ukraine have escalated and will continue to escalate.
This is why the U.S. Congress approved a bill for tougher sanctions on Russia’s energy sector and lethal aid for Ukraine’s military. This is why Washington has sent military trainers to Ukraine and is preparing to provide $3 billion in “anti-armor missiles, reconnaissance drones, armored Humvees, and radars that can determine the location of enemy rocket and artillery fire.”

All of Washington’s actions are designed with one purpose in mind, to intensify the fighting and escalate the conflict. The heavy losses sustained by Ukraine’s inexperienced army and the terrible suffering of the civilians in Lugansk and Donetsk are of no interest to US war-planners.

Their job is to make sure that peace is avoided at all cost because peace would derail US plans to pivot to Asia and remain the world’s only superpower. Here’s an except from an article in the WSWS:


“The ultimate aim of the US and its allies is to reduce Russia to an impoverished and semi-colonial status. Such a strategy, historically associated with Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, is again being openly promoted.

In a speech last year at the Wilson Center, Brzezinski called on Washington to provide Kiev with “weapons designed particularly to permit the Ukrainians to engage in effective urban warfare of resistance.” In line with the policies now recommended in the report by the Brookings Institution and other think tanks calling for US arms to the Kiev regime, Brzezinski called for providing “anti-tank weapons…weapons capable for use in urban short-range fighting.”

While the strategy outlined by Brzezinski is politically criminal—trapping Russia in an ethnic urban war in Ukraine that would threaten the deaths of millions, if not billions of people—it is fully aligned with the policies he has promoted against Russia for decades.” (“The US arming of Ukraine and the danger of World War III“, World Socialist Web Site)

Non-lethal military aid will inevitably lead to lethal military aid, sophisticated weaponry, no-fly zones, covert assistance, foreign contractors, Special ops, and boots on the ground. We’ve seen it all before. There is no popular opposition to the war in the US, no thriving antiwar movement that can shut down cities, order a general strike or disrupt the status quo.

So there’s no way to stop the persistent drive to war.
The media and the political class have given Obama carte blanche, the authority to prosecute the conflict as he sees fit. That increases the probability of a broader war by this summer following the spring thaw.

While the possibility of a nuclear conflagration cannot be excluded, it won’t effect US plans for the near future. No one thinks that Putin will launch a nuclear war to protect the Donbass, so the deterrent value of the weapons is lost.

And Washington isn’t worried about the costs either. Despite botched military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and half a dozen other countries around the world; US stocks are still soaring, foreign investment in US Treasuries is at record levels, the US economy is growing at a faster pace than any of its global competitors, and the dollar has risen an eye-watering 13 percent against a basket of foreign currencies since last June. America has paid nothing for decimating vast swathes of the planet and killing more than a million people. Why would they stop now?

They won’t, which is why the fighting in Ukraine is going to escalate. Check this out from the WSWS:


“On Monday, the New York Times announced that the Obama administration is moving to directly arm the Ukrainian army and the fascistic militias supporting the NATO-backed regime in Kiev, after its recent setbacks in the offensive against pro-Russian separatist forces in east Ukraine.

The article cites a joint report issued Monday by the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and delivered to President Obama, advising the White House and NATO on the best way to escalate the war in Ukraine….

According to the Times, US officials are rapidly shifting to support the report’s proposals. NATO military commander in Europe General Philip M. Breedlove, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, US Secretary of State John Kerry, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey all supported discussions on directly arming Kiev. National Security Advisor Susan Rice is reconsidering her opposition to arming Kiev, paving the way for Obama’s approval.” (“Washington moves toward arming Ukrainian regime“, World Socialist Web Site)

See what’s going on? The die is already cast. There will be a war with Russia because that’s what the political establishment wants. It’s that simple. And while previous provocations failed to lure Putin into the Ukrainian cauldron, this new surge of violence–a spring offensive– is bound to do the trick.

Putin is not going to sit on his hands while proxies armed with US weapons and US logistical support pound the Donbass to Fallujah-type rubble.
He’ll do what any responsible leader would do. He’ll protect his people. That means war. (See the vast damage that Obama’s proxy war has done to E. Ukraine here: “An overview of the socio – humanitarian situation on the territory of Donetsk People’s Republic as a consequence of military action from 17 to 23 January 2015“)

Asymmetrical Warfare: Falling Oil Prices

Keep in mind, that the Russian economy has already been battered by economic sanctions, oil price manipulation, and a vicious attack of the ruble.

Until this week, the mainstream media dismissed the idea that the Saudis were deliberately pushing down oil prices to hurt Russia. They said the Saudis were merely trying to retain “market share” by maintaining current production levels and letting prices fall naturally.

But it was all bunkum as the New York Times finally admitted on Tuesday in an article titled: “Saudi Oil Is Seen as Lever to Pry Russian Support From Syria’s Assad”. Here’s a clip from the article:


“Saudi Arabia has been trying to pressure President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to abandon his support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, using its dominance of the global oil markets at a time when the Russian government is reeling from the effects of plummeting oil prices…

Saudi officials say — and they have told the United States — that they think they have some leverage over Mr. Putin because of their ability to reduce the supply of oil and possibly drive up prices….Any weakening of Russian support for Mr. Assad could be one of the first signs that the recent tumult in the oil market is having an impact on global statecraft…..

Saudi Arabia’s leverage depends on how seriously Moscow views its declining oil revenue. “If they are hurting so bad that they need the oil deal right away, the Saudis are in a good position to make them pay a geopolitical price as well,” said F. Gregory Gause III, a Middle East specialist at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service (“Saudi Oil Is Seen as Lever to Pry Russian Support From Syria’s Assad“, New York Times)

The Saudis “think they have some leverage over Mr. Putin because of their ability” to manipulate prices?

That says it all, doesn’t it?

What’s interesting about this article is the way it conflicts with previous pieces in the Times. For example, just two weeks ago, in an article titled “Who Will Rule the Oil Market?” the author failed to see any political motive behind the Saudi’s action.

According to the narrative, the Saudis were just afraid that “they would lose market share permanently” if they cut production and kept prices high. Now the Times has done a 180 and joined the so called conspiracy nuts who said that prices were manipulated for political reasons.

In fact, the sudden price plunge had nothing to do with deflationary pressures, supply-demand dynamics, or any other mumbo-jumbo market forces. It was 100 percent politics.

The attack on the ruble was also politically motivated, although the details are much more sketchy. There’s an interesting interview with Alistair Crooke that’s worth a read for those who are curious about how the Pentagon’s “full spectrum dominance” applies to financial warfare. According to Crooke:


“…with Ukraine, we have entered a new era: We have a substantial, geostrategic conflict taking place, but it’s effectively a geo-financial war between the US and Russia. We have the collapse in the oil prices; we have the currency wars; we have the contrived “shorting” — selling short — of the ruble. We have a geo-financial war, and what we are seeing as a consequence of this geo-financial war is that first of all, it has brought about a close alliance between Russia and China.

China understands that Russia constitutes the first domino; if Russia is to fall, China will be next. These two states are together moving to create a parallel financial system, disentangled from the Western financial system. ……

For some time, the international order was structured around the United Nations and the corpus of international law, but more and more the West has tended to bypass the UN as an institution designed to maintain the international order, and instead relies on economic sanctions to pressure some countries. We have a dollar-based financial system, and through instrumentalizing America’s position as controller of all dollar transactions, the US has been able to bypass the old tools of diplomacy and the UN — in order to further its aims.

But increasingly, this monopoly over the reserve currency has become the unilateral tool of the United States — displacing multilateral action at the UN. The US claims jurisdiction over any dollar-denominated transaction that takes place anywhere in the world. And most business and trading transactions in the world are denominated in dollars. This essentially constitutes the financialization of the global order: The International Order depends more on control by the US Treasury and Federal Reserve than on the UN as before.” (“Turkey might become hostage to ISIL just like Pakistan did“, Today’s Zaman)

Financial warfare, asymmetrical warfare, Forth Generation warfare, space warfare, information warfare, nuclear warfare, laser, chemical, and biological warfare. The US has expanded its arsenal well beyond the traditional range of conventional weaponry. The goal, of course, is to preserve the post-1991 world order (The dissolution up of the Soviet Union) and maintain full spectrum dominance.

The emergence of a multi-polar world order spearheaded by Moscow poses the greatest single threat to Washington’s plans for continued domination. The first significant clash between these two competing world views will likely take place sometime this summer in East Ukraine. God help us.

NOTE: The Novorussia Armed Forces (NAF) currently have 8,000 Ukrainian regulars surrounded in Debaltsevo, East Ukraine. This is a very big deal although the media has been (predictably) keeping the story out of the headlines.

Evacuation corridors have been opened to allow civilians to leave the area. Fighting could break out at anytime. At present, it looks like a good part of the Kiev’s Nazi army could be destroyed in one fell swoop. This is why Merkel and Hollande have taken an emergency flight to Moscow to talk with Putin. They are not interested in peace. They merely want to save their proxy army from annihilation.

I expect Putin may intervene on behalf of the Ukrainian soldiers, but I think commander Zakharchenko will resist. If he lets these troops go now, what assurance does he have that they won’t be back in a month or so with high-powered weaponry provided by our war-mongering congress and White House?

Tell me; what choice does Zakharchenko really have? If his comrades are killed in future combat because he let Kiev’s army escape, who can he blame but himself?

There are no good choices.
 
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URGENT Update: French President Hollande calls for broader autonomy for E.Ukraine

Submitted by WorkerAnt#11, on February 7th, 2015

Link: http://investmentwatchblog.com/urge...nde-calls-for-broader-autonomy-for-e-ukraine/

French President Francois Hollande called for “quite strong” autonomy for Ukraine’s eastern regions while speaking on France 2 TV. He also revealed part of the joint plan
image: http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png
discussed in Moscow on the conflict’s solution.

On Saturday, Hollande said that the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk need “rather strong” autonomy from Kiev.

“These people have gone to war,” Hollande explained. “It will be difficult to make them share a common life [with Kiev].”

The French President also revealed part of the joint document
image: http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png
under negotiation between Berlin, Moscow, Paris and Kiev. He said it will feature a 50- to 70-kilometer demilitarized zone on each side of the current line dividing militia-held and Kiev-controlled territories.

The revelation comes after German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande discussed the situation with the Ukrainian president on Thursday and came to Moscow on Friday to meet President Vladimir Putin. The talks lasted nearly five hours and were characterized as ‘constructive’ by all sides.

http://rt.com/news/230251-ukraine-plan-autonomy-hollande/

Hopes for breakthrough: Moscow talks on Ukraine ‘constructive,’ joint doc ‘possible’

Five hour-long Moscow talks behind closed doors
image: http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png
between the leaders of Russia, France and Germany have brought hopes for further dialogue between Kiev and E. Ukraine. The meeting was said to be ‘constructive’, but peace plan details remain a mystery.

Journalists were given a mere 30 seconds to take photographs of the three leaders, and none of them uttered a single word to the press during the photo-shoot.

Friday’s visit by President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Moscow was a hasty one. No usual diplomatic rituals – European leaders headed straight to the Kremlin from the airport and were on their flights back very quickly after the talks.

Journalists, who spent five hours waiting had to eventually make do with only an afterword from the Russian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, which didn’t shed much light on what the leaders actually talked about.

“On the basis of proposals made by the French President and German Chancellor, there is currently on-going joint work to prepare the text of a possible joint document on the implementation of the Minsk agreements – a document that would include proposals made by Ukrainian President Poroshenko and proposals put forward today by Russian President Putin,” Peskov said.

http://rt.com/news/230123-putin-hollande-merkel-talks/

Hollande: If lasting Ukraine peace not found ‘scenario is war’

The Franco-German peace initiative could be the last ditch attempt to end the war in Ukraine, French President Francois Hollande said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel believes the crisis cannot be solved militarily.

Hollande described the peace talks he and Merkel held with the presidents of Russia and Ukraine this week as “one of the last chances” for peace.

“If we don’t find not just a compromise but a lasting peace agreement, we know perfectly well what the scenario will be. It has a name, it’s called war,” Hollande told journalists in the city of Tulle in central France, according to Reuters.

Earlier on Saturday, Angela Merkel was sharing her vision of the possible solution to the Ukraine crisis at the Munich Security Conference.

“The Ukrainian crisis cannot be resolved militarily,” she said.

http://rt.com/news/230211-hollande-war-merkel-ukraine/
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Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/urge...r-autonomy-for-e-ukraine/#6tEK8dSHicbs6vFh.99
 
Peace Talks Fail: Russian President Vladimir Putin rejects attempts to contain Russia after peace talks fail

Submitted by WorkerAnt#11, on February 7th, 2015

Link: http://investmentwatchblog.com/peac...pts-to-contain-russia-after-peace-talks-fail/

Ukraine Summit Is Unsuccessful; U.S. Contemplates Next Steps

(Bloomberg
image: http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png
) — Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed rebels escalated as Germany and France sought to keep diplomacy alive after inconclusive talks with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President
image: http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png

Francois Hollande, Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko plan a conference call tomorrow to discuss a potential settlement. The plan foresees a demilitarized zone of 50 to 70 kilometers, Hollande told France 2 television. Greater autonomy is needed in the east and it will take “a few more days” to finalize a deal, Hollande said, as cited by France 2.

“It is uncertain whether this will be successful,” Merkel said in Munich on Saturday after she and Hollande met Putin at the Kremlin for more than five hours ending early in the morning. “But in my view and in the view of the French president, it’s at least worth making an attempt,” she said.

The next 24 to 48 hours could determine whether a tenuous peace takes hold or a wider war breaks out, potentially with the U.S. and some European allies supplying arms to Ukraine’s government. A breakdown of the diplomacy
image: http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png
would also strain trans-Atlantic unity in dealing with Russia, as Europe’s consensus on economic sanctions shows signs of fraying.

Cease-Fire

A cease-fire decision will come “in hours or days,” Poroshenko said in a speech at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, adding he had no “preconditions” for a truce but that all elements of the September Minsk peace deal must be honored. Poroshenko earlier said he won’t meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who’s also in Munich.

Merkel, in a speech at the Munich meeting
image: http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png
, repeated her opposition to supplying weapons to Ukraine. “The progress Ukraine needs won’t be achieved with more weapons. I have a lot of doubts,” she said.



Deeper Sanctions

Hanging over the negotiations is the prospect of deeper sanctions on Russia, an economic collapse in Ukraine and the risk that the conflict descends into a proxy war.

Ukraine’s economy has lost 20 percent of its industrial output, Poroshenko said. The hryvnia has been battered and foreign reserves are at an 11-year low. The junk-rated country is in talks with the International Monetary Fund
image: http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png
on extending and expanding a $17 billion bailout agreed in April.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...edge-to-pursue-ukraine-cease-fire-after-talks

Putin Rejects Attempts to Contain Russia After Peace Talks Fail

(Bloomberg) — Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a defiant tone a day after talks in Moscow with the leaders of Germany and France failed to achieve a breakthrough in resolving the Ukraine crisis.

Russia won’t tolerate the post-Cold War global system dominated by a single leader, Putin said Saturday at a meeting with the Federation of Independent Trade Unions
image: http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png
in Sochi.

“That type of world order has never been acceptable for Russia,” Putin said. “Maybe someone likes it and wants to live under a pseudo-occupation, but we won’t put up with it.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande met the Russian leader for more than five hours Friday to discuss spiraling violence in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russian-backed separatists. A breakdown of the diplomacy may strain trans-Atlantic unity in dealing with Russia, as Europe’s consensus on economic sanctions shows signs of fraying.

Ukraine, the U.S., the European Union and NATO say Russia is supporting the separatists with hardware, cash and troops, accusations the Kremlin denies. Russia says Ukraine is waging war on its own citizens and discriminates against Russian speakers
image: http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png
, a majority in Donetsk and Luhansk.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...l?hootPostID=970dccc3a86f944fc21e7e7405a0f059
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Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/peac...a-after-peace-talks-fail/#Ey95w8RjQTqlPaWq.99
 
Europe Fractures: France Pivots To Putin, Cyprus Offers Moscow Military Base, Germany-US Splinter On Ukraine

Link: http://www.blacklistednews.com/Euro...US_Splinter_On_Ukraine/41634/0/38/38/Y/M.html

Published: February 8, 2015

Source: Zero Hedge


Following yesterday's summary of the utter farce that the Minsk Summit/Ukraine "peace" deal talks have become, the various parties involved appear to be fracturing even faster today. The headlines are coming thick and fast but most prescient appears to be: Despite John Kerry's denial of any split between Germany and US over arms deliveries to Ukraine, German Foreign Minister Steinmeier slammed Washington's strategy for being "not just risky but counterproductive." But perhaps most significantly is France's continued apparent pivot towards Russia... Following Francois Hollande's calls for greater autonomy for Eastern Ukraine, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has come out in apparent support of Russia (and specifically against the US), "we are part of a common civilization with Russia,” adding, "the interests of the Americans with the Russians are not the interests of Europe and Russia." Even NATO appears to have given up hope of peace as Stoltenberg's statements show little optimism and the decision by Cyprus to allow Russia to use its soil for military facilities suggests all is not at all well in the European 'union'.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier doubled down on Germany's rejection of weapons deliveries to Ukraine in a speech here Sunday...

•*GABRIEL SAYS GERMAN SPD WOULD NEVER BACK ARMS TO UKRAINE
•*EUROPE SEES U.S. ARMS DELIVERIES TO UKRAINE AS BAD IDEA: LAVROV

"I see this, to say it openly, as not just for risky but for counter-productive," Mr. Steinmeier said at the Munich Security Conference. Mr. Steinmeier also hit back at open criticism of Germany's position on weapons deliveries from U.S. Senators and others here on Saturday. The White House is mulling delivering weapons to Ukraine to support the country's fight against pro-Russia separatists in the country's east.

"Perhaps we are so insistent because we know the region a bit," Mr. Steinmeier said.

But John Kerry says, everything's fine... as he denies any split between U.S. and Europe on Russia policy...


Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday denied any divisions between the U.S. and Europe over how to handle Russia, as Germany announced another high-level summit aimed at stemming the crisis in Ukraine.

Kerry told a security conference in Munich that he wanted to "assure everybody there is no division, there is no split" between Washington and its European allies amid the crisis in Ukraine.


"We are united, we are working closely together," he told the conference following meetings with his French and German counterparts. "We all agree that this challenge will not end through military force. We are united in our diplomacy."

But perhaps most significantly is France's continued apparent pivot towards Russia... Following Francois Hollande's calls for greater autonomy for Eastern Ukraine, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has come out in apparent support of Russia (and specifically against the US).


“We are part of a common civilization with Russia,” said Sarkozy, speaking on Saturday at the congress of the Union for a Popular Movement Party (UMP), which the former president heads.

“The interests of the Americans with the Russians are not the interests of Europe and Russia,” he said adding that “we do not want the revival of a Cold War between Europe and Russia.”

“Crimea has chosen Russia, and we cannot blame it [for doing so],” he said pointing out that “we must find the means to create a peacekeeping force to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine.”

And then Cyprus joins the fracture party, offering to sign a military cooperation agreement on Feb 25th offering Russia the use of military facilities on its soil...


The air force base at which Russian planes will use is about 40 kilometers from Britain's sovereign Air Force base at Akrotiri, on the south shores of Cyprus, which provides support to NATO operations in the Middle and Near East regions

Even NATO appears to know the "peace deal" is not coming...
•STOLTENBERG: 'IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY' IF MINSK PRODUCES CEASE-FIRE

But there is still hope.. as Germany's Vice-Chanceller hopes...
•*GERMANY'S GABRIEL `CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC' ABOUT MINSK SUMMIT

demands...
•*PUTIN MUST TAKE EU'S `OUTSTRETCHED HAND,' GABRIEL SAYS

But adds...
•*EU SEEKS POST-CRISIS PARTNERSHIP RENEWAL WITH RUSSIA: GABRIEL

We will know soon...
•*RUSSIA SAYS FEB. 9-10 UKRAINE MEETINGS TO PREPARE MINSK SUMMIT
 
The Top 5 Ways We Use Oil & Gas

November 17, 2019 by IWB

Link: https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/the-top-5-ways-we-use-oil-gas/

By Julianne Geiger

If climate change and the use of fossil fuels is starting to worry you, consider this: The lion’s share of the petroleum in the United States is being used just to get around–to get people and things from point A to point B.

Industrial, residential, commercial and electrical power usage of petroleum pales in comparison.

Fossil fuels–which include crude oil and other liquids–are refined into petroleum products for a multitude of uses, and last year, the United States consumed over 20 million barrels per day.

A whopping 69 percent of that was consumed by transportation. Industry, which the masses like to villainize most in terms of fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, used only 25 percent. Residential usage accounted for only 3 percent of our petroleum consumption, and commercial, only 2 percent.

What about electricity? American electricity generation used only 1 percent of those petroleum products.

Source: EIA

So, for anyone looking to pinpoint where we need to start cheerleading for renewables or fossil-fuels shaming, here are the top 5 uses of petroleum products to help redirect the debate:

#5 Oceans of Plastic: Still Gas, 0.703M BPD

While primarily referring to methane and ethane, “still gas” is any form or mixture of gases produced in refineries by distillation, cracking, reforming, and other processes. That means it also includes ethylene, normal butane, butylenes, propane, propylene, and others.

It’s used most as refinery fuel or petrochemical feedstock.

The conversion factor is 6 million Btus per fuel oil equivalent barrel.

U.S. refineries burned nearly 240 million barrels of still gas in 2018.

But petrochemicals are one of the largest drivers of global oil demand, so it’s a circular competition here for still gas.

This still gas makes its way into everything from plastics, fertilizers and packaging to clothing, digital devices, medical equipment, detergents and tires.

In fact, one key beneficiary of the American natural gas boom has been the global plastics industry.

The U.S. is producing so much natural gas and ethane that it’s beyond what American chemical plants actually need. As it turns out, the global plastics industry is happy to take it off their hands at cut-rate prices.

So, all those oceans of plastic–thank the U.S. shale boom.

#4 ‘Shameful’ Jet Fuel, 1.71M bpd

In 2018, the United States sucked up over 1.7 million barrels per day of kerosene-type jet fuel.

This is part of the argument underpinning the new era of “flight shaming” because it includes both commercial aircraft usage and military aircraft usage. More specifically, this kerosene-based product is used for commercial and military turbo jet and turbo prop aircraft engines.

The EIA now projects that global demand for jet fuel will expand significantly over the next 40 years as demand rises for freight air transport and passenger air travel.

According to Statista, global fuel consumption by commercial airlines is set to reach a record of 97 billion gallons for 2019.

Air freight transport is set to grow at an annual rate of 2.6 percent, while passenger air travel is set to triple by 2050. Asian demand will be the biggest surge.

The massive use of jet fuel and growing demand has pushed the US Navy, for one, to experiment with seawater bacteria as a potential biofuel replacement.

The aviation industry is under a tremendous amount of pressure now to come up with an answer to flight shaming, and to work to reduce carbon emissions.

Only two airlines in the world have officially committed to a goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The first was British Airways, which plans to invest in sustainable fueland replace older aircraft with more efficient jets over the coming five years. The second was Qantas, which plans to invest $50 million over 10 years to help develop sustainable fuels.

Airlines might be #4 in the fossil fuels use category, but they are not as high up on the CO2 emissions offenders as you might think, despite being named and shamed. According to the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), the global aviation industry is responsible for 2 percent of all human-induced CO2 emissions, and in the transport sector, it claims 12 percent of all transportation-caused emissions, with road travel accounting for 74 percent.

#3 Hydrocarbon Gas Liquids, 3.01M bpd

This group of petroleum, called HGLs, encompasses propane, ethane, butane. These products are produced in nat gas processing plants as well as in oil refineries. This category includes all natural gas liquids but does not include liquid natural gas.

Of these, propane is the most commonly used HGL in the United States, where it is used both residentially and commercially for heat. But HGLs are widely used in the industrial sector too, in plastics, paints, and resins.

As far as CO2 emissions go, HGL isn’t really far up there, mostly because a significant share are not combusted, and noncombusted HGLs don’t really create a lot of C02.

Barely a blip on the C02 radar.

#2 Diesel and heating oil

Taking second spot on the US petroleum consumption list is distillate fuel oil, which includes both diesel and heating oil. Diesel fuel is used in diesel engines, which are found in construction equipment, trucks, buses, tractors, boats, trains, even some cars–although this is rarer in the US. Some generators also take diesel fuel.

Heating oil, also called fuel oil, is used in boilers and furnaces for heat, and is sometimes used to produce electricity in power plants.

Total distillate fuel oil consumption in 2018 averaged about 4.15 million b/d, or 20% of total U.S. petroleum consumption.

Distillate fuel consumption in the U.S. transportation sector alone resulted in 461 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2018, according to the EIA. This is 24% of all C02 emissions in U.S. transportation sector and nearly 9% of total U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions.

#1 Road-Tripping Gasoline

Gasoline is the most heavily used petroleum product in the United States today, and if you want a petroleum product to take aim at, gasoline is your man.

Last year, US consumers chewed through 9.33 million barrels per day of the stuff, and accounts for almost half of all petroleum consumed in the United States.

Combined with #2 above, distillates, the two represent 81% of all CO2 emissions in the United States, according to the EIA.

So who is using all this gasoline? By state, that would be Texas and California, who combined, consume 23% of all the gasoline in the country. Runners up are Florida, New York, and Georgia.

So while the US uses petroleum products to whisk all over the country (and the world), to heat buildings, to produce electricity, and to make products such as plastics and hundreds of other end-user goods, the transportation sector is by far the largest share of the petroleum sector.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
 

Alaska Governor Says His State Easily Could Help Fix Energy Shortage, But the White House Won't Allow It​

STATION GOSSIP 06:14

Link: http://www.stationgossip.com/2022/03/alaska-governor-says-his-state-easily.html

As President Joe Biden cozies up to nations such as Venezuela in his hunt to bring down sky-high gasoline prices, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleav...​

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As President Joe Biden cozies up to nations such as Venezuela in his hunt to bring down sky-high gasoline prices, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has a different partnership in mind — one with Americans.

“President Biden is searching for oil anywhere on the planet except at home,” Dunleavy told Fox News on Wednesday.

During remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month in Orlando, the Republican governor said the Trump era was about “opportunity and hope.” Biden’s time is filled with “cancellation and trepidation,” he said.

Dunleavy followed those remarks with a statement on his website Thursday outlining how Alaska, if let off the Biden leash, could address America’s energy woes.

Alaska is awash in energy, but not able to capitalize on it,” Dunleavy wrote. “Mr. President, we know you can help with this.”

Dunleavy noted that America was hurting before Russia invaded Ukraine, and policies taken in response to the invasion will exacerbate that pain unless visionary and pragmatic actions are taken to address America’s energy needs.

“Mr. President you said your policies are not holding back domestic energy production. This will be a true statement when you reverse course and allow energy projects to get back on the track they were on before you took office,” Dunleavy wrote.
Biden’s first step should be to work with Americans and reverse bad decisions, Dunleavy said.

“You can lower the price at the pump for Americans by expediting the permitting and regulating processes on responsible oil and gas projects. The U.S. should not be begging for oil from dictatorships such as Iran and Venezuela. We can produce it at home with the highest of standards for environmental protection, if you will simply let us,” Dunleavy wrote.

The governor noted that the Biden administration has refused to defend the Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A).
“Willow is the largest standalone oil development on the North Slope in more than 20 years. It is nearly shovel ready, could be built by 2025-2026, and would supply some 160,000 barrels of oil per day,” Dunleavy wrote.

He wrote that if Biden reversed his own actions curbing development in the NPR-A and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, “Alaska could place an additional ~17 billion barrels of oil and an additional 32Tcf of gas in the marketplace.”

Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska and other Republicans also called on Biden to let Alaska develop its resources, according to AlaskaNewsSource.
“If we need these resources, which we do, we will be needing these for decades to come,” Republicans wrote in a recent letter to Biden. “We should be producing them in our country with our great American workers and our high environmental standards. “This makes complete sense from an economic security perspective and a national security perspective and if we don’t do it, we’re going to be having to rely on and beg from countries that to be quite frank, don’t like us.”
 

THE BIDEN LEGACY: South Africa Confirms Saudi Arabia Will Join BRICS Alliance With China And Russia And Move Away From US With Explosive Consequences​

Link: http://www.womensystems.com/2022/10/the-biden-legacy-south-africa-confirms.html

Women System October 17, 2022 4 Comments 0 comment


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Saudi Arabia, the largest U.S. export market in the Middle East, invited Chinese President Xi to visit Riyadh in March as relations with the U.S. have faltered since Joe Biden was elected, The Wall Street Journal reported.
According to a report from CNN, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Saudi Arabia is now actively manufacturing its own ballistic missiles with the help of China, a relationship that could lead to domino effects across Middle East countries.
Under Biden, the US leader who suffers from severe dementia is openly mocked on the international stage. U.S. allies are now aligning with China.
Saudi Arabia announced in March it was considering accepting the Chinese yuan instead of the US dollar in future transactions.
This is the move Steve Bannon and the War Room have been warning you about for the past year.
It will end US dollar supremacy — and it was facilitated by Joe Biden, Democrats, and the Uniparty members.

Joe Biden and his handlers are destroying the United States.
In July Saudi Arabia was invited to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS.
And this weekend, the South African leader confirmed the likelihood that Saudi Arabia would be joining the BRICS Alliance.
Via Conservative Treehouse.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa held a two-day summit with Saudi Arabia on mostly economic matters.
At the conclusion of the summit, he confirmed the intent of Saudi Arabia to join the BRICS economic coalition, which should not come as a surprise given the previous statements by Saudi leader and Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman (MbS).
(MSM) Ramaphosa confirms Saudi Arabia wants to join Brics family. This was revealed by President Cyril Ramaphosa during his two-day state visit to the kingdom on Sunday.
“The Crown Prince (prime minister Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud) did express Saudi Arabia’s desire to be part of Brics and they are not the only country,” said Ramaphosa. He confirmed this on Sunday during an engagement with the media.
Brics held its first summit in 2009, with SA joining the following year. The bloc has generally been seen as an alternative to the dominance of the western economies.
“We did say that Brics having a summit next year under the chairship of South Africa in SA and the matter is going to be under consideration.
“A number of countries are making approaches to Brics members, and we have given them the same answer that it will be discussed by the Brics partners and thereafter a decision will be made.” (read more)
Since the outset of the Western Alliance sanctions against Russia, we have been predicting an increased geopolitical influence from the BRICS team. A global financial and economic cleaving is underway created by the western nations chasing ideological climate change energy policy, while the rest of the world remains pragmatic toward oil, coal and natural gas as energy resources.
We have been closely monitoring the signs of a global cleaving around the energy sector taking place. Essentially, western governments’ following the “Build Back Better” climate change agenda which stops using coal, oil and gas to power their economic engine, while the rest of the growing economic world continues using the more efficient and traditional forms of energy to power their economies.
Joe Biden’s handlers are purposely destroying the United States. People better wake up.
 

A DOLLAR COLLAPSE IS NOW IN MOTION – SAUDI ARABIA SIGNALS THE END OF PETRO STATUS​

Published: January 25, 2023

Link: https://www.blacklistednews.com/art...n--saudi-arabia-signals-the-end-of-petro.html

SOURCE: BRANDON SMITH - ALT MARKET



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The decline of a currency’s world reserve status is often a long process rife with denials. There are numerous economic “experts” out there that have been dismissing any and all warnings of dollar collapse for years. They just don’t get it, or they don’t want to get it. The idea that the US currency could ever be dethroned as the defacto global trade mechanism is impossible in their minds.
One of the key pillars keeping the dollar in place as the world reserve is its petro-status, and this factor is often held up as the reason why the Greenback cannot fail. The other argument is that the dollar is backed by the full force of the US military, and the US military is backed by the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve – In other words, the dollar is backed by…the dollar; it’s a very circular and naive position.
These sentiments are not only pervasive among mainstream economists, they are also all over the place within the alternative media. I suspect the main hang-up for liberty movement analysts is the notion that the globalist establishment would ever allow the dollar or the US economy to fail. Isn’t the dollar system their “golden goose”?
The answer is no, it is NOT their golden goose. The dollar is just another stepping stone towards their goal of a one-world economy and a one-world currency. They have killed the world reserve status of other currencies in the past, why wouldn’t they do the same to the dollar?
Globalist white papers and essays specifically outline the need for a diminished role for the US currency as well as a decline in the American economy in order to make way for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and a new global currency system controlled by the IMF. I warned about this years go, and my position has always been that the derailment of the dollar would likely start with the end of its petro status.
In 2017 I published an article titled ‘Saudi Coup Signals War And The New World Order Reset’. I noted at the time that the sudden power shift over to crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman indicated a change in Saudi Arabia’s relationship to the US. I stated that:
To understand how drastic this coup has been, consider this — for decades Saudi Kings maintained political balance by doling out vital power positions to separate, carefully chosen successors. Positions such as Defense Minister, the Interior Ministry and the head of the National Guard. Today, Mohammed Bin Salman controls all three positions. Foreign policy, defense matters, oil and economic decisions and social changes are now all in the hands of one man.”
The rise of MBS was backed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), a fund comprised of trillions of dollars supplied by globalists within Carlyle Group (Bush family, etc.), Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and Blackrock. MBS garnered the favor of the globalists for one specific reason – He openly supported their “Vision For 2030”, a plan for the dismantling of “fossil fuel” based energy and the implementation of carbon controls. Yes, that’s right, the head of Saudi Arabia is backing the eventual end of oil based energy, and part of that includes the end of the dollar as the petro currency.
In exchange for their cooperation, the Saudis are being given access to ESG-like funding as well as access to AI advancements and the so-called “digital economy.” It sounds crazy, but there is much talk of AI developments to cure numerous health problems and extend lifespan. With those kinds of promises, it’s not surprising that Saudi elites would be willing to dump the dollar and even oil.
In 2017 I noted that:
I believe the next phase of the global economic reset will begin in part with the breaking of petrodollar dominance. An important element of my analysis on the strategic shift away from the petrodollar has been the symbiosis between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has been the single most important key to the dollar remaining as the petrocurrency from the very beginning.”
I believed that the threat to petro status would ultimately be spurred on by a proxy war between East and West:
World economic war is the real name of the game here, as the globalists play puppeteers to East and West. It is a geopolitical crisis they will have created to engineer public support for a solution they predetermined.”
Back then I thought that such a proxy war would be initiated in the Middle East, possibly in Iran. However, it’s clear that Ukraine is the powderkeg the globalists have chosen, at least for now, with Taiwan being the next shoe to drop.
In the years since I made these predictions the relationship between Saudi Arabia, Russia and China has grown very close. Arms deals and energy deals are becoming a mainstay of trade and this has led to a quiet but steady distancing of the Saudis from the dollar. This past week, the dominoes were set in motion for dollar collapse when Saudi Arabia announced at Davos that they are now willing to trade oil in alternative currencies.
In response, Xi Jinping pledged to ramp up efforts to promote the use of the Chinese yuan in energy deals. This falls in line with another article I wrote in 2017 titled ‘The Economic End Game Continues,’ in which I described how conflict with Eastern nations (China and Russia) would be exploited to create a catalyst for the end of the dollar’s petro status.
The importance of the Saudi announcement cannot be overstated; this is the beginning of the end of the dollar. The dollar’s world reserve status is largely dependent on its petro-status. Without one, you cannot have the other. This is almost the exact same dynamic that led to the implosion of the British Sterling decades ago as the global petro currency which resulted in the rise of the dollar to take its place.
This time, though, it will not be a single foreign currency that takes on the role of world reserve, it will be a basket currency system controlled by the IMF called Special Drawing Rights, along with a single global digital currency that is yet to be named but is now under development.
The consequences of the loss of reserve status will be devastating to the US economy. It is the only glue holding our system together – The ability to defer inflation by exporting it overseas is a superpower only the US enjoys. The Fed can print money perpetually if it wants to in order to fund the government or prop up US markets, as long as foreign central banks and corporate banks are willing to absorb dollars as a tool for global trade. If the dollar is no longer the primary international trade mechanism, the trillions upon trillions of dollars the Fed has created from thin air over the years will all come flooding back to the US through various avenues, and hyperinflation (or hyperstagflation) will be the result.
This dynamic is already in play, as foreign holders of US debt and dollars have been dumping them at record pace since 2017. The process continues at a time when the Federal Reserve is cutting it’s balance sheet and raising interest rates, which means there is no longer a buyer of last resort.
This may be why multiple foreign central banks have renewed their purchases of gold reserves and are once again stockpiling precious metals. They seem to be well aware of what is about to happen to the dollar, while the American public is kept in the dark.
The effects of the decline of the dollar may not be immediately felt, or become obvious for another year or two. What will happen is consistent inflation on top of the high prices we are already dealing with. Meaning, the Federal Reserve will continue to hold interest rates higher and prices will barely budge or they may climb in spite of monetary tightening. Even in the face of a major recessionary contraction, which I predict will be triggered starting in April, prices will STILL remain higher.
All the while the mainstream media and government economists will say they have “no idea” why inflation is so persistent, and that “nobody could have seen this coming.” Some of us saw it coming, but only because we accept the reality that the dollar’s days are numbered.
 
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