2 hours ago, bannork said:

Australia's reserves are low:

On March 3, Bowen told reporters ⁠that Australia had 36 days of petrol, 34 days of diesel, and 32 days of jet fuel in reserve, the highest level in more than a decade.

That ⁠is, however, still far below the 90 days' holdings International Energy Agency members are supposed to have.

Australia releases petrol and diesel from emergency reserves | Reuters

That seems very low. Even Thailand claims to have the international standard of 90 days' reserve. Those tankers could easily still be sitting there a month from now.

7 hours ago, Alan Zweibel said:

Below is a link to a thorough and thoughtful exposition of these pipelines. Basically the article says that they were already in use before the war so there's only so much that can be pumped through them. And they can't be fully utilized because the terminus at the Yanbu port can only load, at most, 4.5 million bpd. At most. And about 2 million bpd of that capacity is already being utilized by a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea. In addition, those pipelines can only transport crude oil. A large percentage of the tankers passing through the straits carry refined distillates such as diesel or jet fuel.

I don't think it's quite accurate to say they can only carry crude oil. That's what they're carrying now, but it doesn't have to be. I used to work for two companies (Eagleton and Stone & Webster) that did design & construction projects for Saudi Aramco and some of that work involved the E/W pipeline.

The pipeline(s) can carry different products. In fact the article you linked to points out that one of them previously carried NGL (natural gas liquids).

It would take some time to convert them to carry a different product though, and it might also require some changes in the storage facilities. So it wouldn't be a trivial or particularly quick change to undertake.

18 minutes ago, Chivas said:

This is proving what an absolute idiot the orange guy disrupting the world is thought of......

he should expect that after all the shxx he did to his/USA allies, he threaten everybody, he applied tariffs left and right without any justification, the allies were disrespected, treated like garbage and now he wants their help, he must be kidding if he expected anybody to come to his rescue, bad news Donnie, you are on your own, you made the bed now lie/lay on it

11 minutes ago, Mavideol said:

he should expect that after all the shxx he did to his/USA allies, he threaten everybody, he applied tariffs left and right without any justification, the allies were disrespected, treated like garbage and now he wants their help, he must be kidding if he expected anybody to come to his rescue, bad news Donnie, you are on your own, you made the bed now lie/lay on it

He will i imagine be thinking of a way out now. Already his mighty bombing raids have failed to stop Iran launching strikes, no one will come to his aid, what will he be thinking of now ??? and how long before we see the mob shouting " Hell no we wont Go "

A sane person, emotionally balanced, would realise they're not up to the job and would resign.

Unfortunately Trump is an extreme narcissist and will have to be dragged screaming, his little legs waving uselessly in the air, from the White House.

Spineless creap starmer gave him the finger

5 minutes ago, 3NUMBAS said:

Spineless creap starmer gave him the finger

Starmer's gained a lot of kudos since Trump's war began.

Both Reform and Conservative leaders did a quick U-turn from their initial gung-ho, join their hero Trump, when they realized how stupid and unpopular the war is with the British public

6 minutes ago, 3NUMBAS said:

Spineless creap starmer gave him the finger

Am afraid Sir Keir gains more and more admirers in 2026 as he's calm and level headed leading the country

Can you imagine the disgusting Johnson May or the Lettuce leading the country at the moment

2 hours ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

I don't think it's quite accurate to say they can only carry crude oil. That's what they're carrying now, but it doesn't have to be. I used to work for two companies (Eagleton and Stone & Webster) that did design & construction projects for Saudi Aramco and some of that work involved the E/W pipeline.

The pipeline(s) can carry different products. In fact the article you linked to points out that one of them previously carried NGL (natural gas liquids).

It would take some time to convert them to carry a different product though, and it might also require some changes in the storage facilities. So it wouldn't be a trivial or particularly quick change to undertake.

That is basically what the article I linked to said. But given the current situation, I didn't think it was relevant.

After insulting Europe, Americans now are begging for help. Funny how arrogance can shift sometimes in life.

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