Roman Levandovsky 🇺🇦 🇮🇱

@EconstratPB It’s beer o’clock somewhere, innit.

I couldn’t wait.

@CRUDEOIL231 He needs to empty the strategic lemon juice reserve immediately. Dunning-Krueger is real.

I don't particularly like Dr. Anas. I believe in stating opinions clearly, so I don't like fence-sitters who try to play both sides. They can claim victory no matter what happens. However this wicked man's remark was so funny that I couldn't just let it slide: "I do have a problem with people who have a track record of doing the bidding of the oil industry." Seeing someone talk about the impact on consumers while making the ridiculous claim that we should focus only on WTI and Brent benchmarks made me want to take Anas's side for the first time in my life. Look, there is such a thing as refining margins in this world. There’s also freight, insurance costs, and physical diffs. And are you aware even the US has to import millions of barrels of heavy crude every day? Since crude oil is a global commodity, it cannot be perfectly isolated regionally. If you don't even understand the difference between retail prices of refined products and the flat price of crude, just keep your mouth shut. If you don't know, don't talk. Regardless of my personal feelings about him, Dr. Anas's passion and knowledge are the real deal. It is truly disgusting to see a tourist—someone who doesn't even know the basics—tossing around insults and condemning actual oil market participants. For someone working at the Brookings Institution to point out someone else's motives—nothing could be funnier than this LOL

@timber001 @x9156145338501 No swimming at Hormuz beach.

But Suli told me everything was fine… @x9156145338501

Charlie was the real one.

Like I say Bessent has a PhD in sophistry. To a layman MAGA he looks like a genius.

@toiletkingcap @Rory_Johnston Flat.

@Rory_Johnston I’m long ags calls man. Nothing is exciting. It is all just sad

T-minus 30 minutes to crude prices.

@CRUDEOIL231 It could easily happen this way. I think a lot of Trumps thinking is driven by the Epstein Files as well. I am torn between he knows he is toast and wants to take us all with him or he wants the story to die before the midterms.

@levandovsky Total disaster...

@EconstratPB Now say that in Farsi.

@levandovsky Bruh. Jihad deez nuts.

6pm tonight.

@CRUDEOIL231 Great points. Now, say infra is hit in Iran, it’s retaliates and strikes Saudi infra, takes out the pumps. Does that pull Saudi into the war? And if so does Israel want that? If yes the next logical thing to do for Israel is to hit Iran’s infra. Forces US and Saudi hands …

I saw President Trump's ultimatum and looked up the CSIS report that I had read and forgotten a long time ago. As we saw in the recent attack on Ras Laffan in Qatar, I think everyone will agree it was not that Iran was unable to attack the Gulf's energy infrastructure, but that they had chosen not to. After re-reading this report, I am convinced the GCC countries will absolutely not welcome a US airstrike on Iranian power plants and the subsequent Iranian retaliation. This report points out the vulnerability of GCC energy infrastructure using Saudis as an example, and it includes the Ras al-Khair Desalination Plant, which Iran explicitly named as a retaliation target today. Since it only covered Saudi's vulnerability, and if Saudi is vulnerable, the rest of the countries will be even worse, I will briefly summarize only the core points of the report. First, the Saudi oil system has a vertical structure where crude extracted from oil fields flows through GOSP → stabilization facilities → terminals. An attacker targets the bottlenecks of this flow. The Abqaiq stabilization towers (The Crown Jewel) are the world's largest stabilization plants that remove hydrogen sulfide from more than two-thirds of Saudi crude to make it exportable. About 18 stabilization towers and spheroids for oil separation are concentrated here. At the time of the 2019 attack, more than half of Saudi's total production was paralyzed by only 18 to 19 precision strikes. If even one tower is damaged, the entire process falls into a bottleneck, and due to the nature of highly sophisticated equipment, it can take several months to procure replacement parts. Gas-oil separation plants (GOSP) are also vulnerable targets. About 60 GOSPs scattered throughout the country are the first step in separating gas from crude oil. While the destructive power of an individual facility is small, hitting a few key GOSPs in major oil fields (such as Ghawar) simultaneously will cut off the crude oil supply chain itself. The East-West pipeline, the only strategic route that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz and sends crude to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, is also exposed. Along the 1,200km route, pumping stations are the primary targets. The pipeline itself is quick to repair, but the massive pump systems are vulnerable to drone attacks, and if destroyed, large-scale crude transport becomes impossible. We have already seen this case in the CPC. The Ras al-Khair plant is also extremely vulnerable. The report points out that it has serious structural weaknesses, even describing it as a "hostage to fortune." As the world's largest desalination facility, about 80% of the water produced is supplied directly to the capital, Riyadh, through pipelines, making it a massive infrastructure responsible for survival. As seen in the photos, the seawater intake path stretching long toward the coast is identified. The intake the starting point of desalination, is very difficult to defend physically, and simply closing the intake physically or throwing pollutants using drones or small boats can immediately stop the entire massive plant. Also Ras al-Khair procures massive power from its own gas turbines to produce fresh water. Striking only the internal power grid (gas turbines or substations) with missiles or cyberattacks will immediately stop water production. The report warns this structure becomes a target that gives the attacker maximum paralyzing effect with minimal effort. The report analyzes that Iran may hesitate to directly attack civilian targets like Ras al-Khair. This is bc it is a clear act of war and causes an extreme humanitarian disaster. However the analysis suggests if the conflict reaches its peak, Iran is more likely to send a strong political message saying, "We can hold your throat," by partially striking the water pipes or power grids rather than destroying the facilities themselves. The latest drones (such as the Shahed-136) can destroy facilities worth billions of dollars at a low cost of $15,000 per unit, and it is almost economically and technically impossible to block all low-cost drone swarms with expensive air defense systems like the Patriot. Considering the structural vulnerability of GCC energy infrastructure, if Iranian retaliation is triggered by the U.S. airstrike on Iranian energy infrastructure, the probability of facing a humanitarian disaster seems high. I sincerely hope President Trump doesn’t make the wrong call here. The asymmetrical risk is just too high—the potential losses far outweigh any possible gain. We’re talking about a situation could put the lives of tens of millions of ppl in the GCC at risk. #oott #iran

@Dcpcooks @moreproteinbars Right on the move wrong on the country?

@moreproteinbars Damn

🤯🤯🤯 @Dcpcooks

@blondesnmoney UST Jihad is upon us.

$TLT holders right now

@cullenroche He can’t even use a proper metaphor. Aikido.

I'm pretty sure the people getting jiu-jitsued by all of this are US consumers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hey @commonsenseplay Iran declared Jihad on your portfolio.

@Automoto415792 Mars. Condos. Roadster. Batteries.

so lets see ModelY standard Robotaxi Optimus Robotaxi FSD 14.2 Robotaxi Optimus Cybercab Cybercab Semi Terafab Space Good luck… $tsla

But what’s next after that? $TSLA very own oil refinery? Imagine this, Elon’s tears are meticulously collected and refined into snake oil. Now that is a quintillion dollar idea.

@Automoto415792 Soon they will be producing their own oil, oh wait they already do! Snake oil.

TSMC is shaking now after Musk’s decision to make Tesla a chip producer next to it’s taxi business.. $tsla

@Brad_Setser Thank you kindly.

@levandovsky impacts of higher oil prices on activity, of swings in global flows on financial market pricing, etc. this was a comparative statics exercise so to speak

Petrodollars! Nothing produces more heated discussion and, in my experience, less insight. Myths trump facts, because the actual data is a bit obscure -- But here is the most important thing to know. Before the Hormuz crisis, the flow of petrodollars had more or less dried up 1/many

@OddDiligence Shrinklification.

$HSY Unfortunately this peanut butter cup grandson is spot on. Haven’t had them in a few weeks but bought a 4 pack of the regular cups today- every few months they get smaller and smaller, and the chocolate is total garbage chocolate now. Eventually all size cups will have regressed to those tiny ass pb cups that are individually wrapped. Big cups that were once a modern marvel are transforming into a relic as well… low quality chocolate is abundant. Very sad but very true.

@Brad_Setser Great thread! What are the second order effects?

That's my take on the big first order effects on the big regions of the global economy -- There will of course also be important impacts on all the middle powers that are oil importers (Turkey, India, Pakistan, etc) ... 25/25