Some airlines are cancelling flights left and right, others are jacking up the prices. If the war keeps going on into the summer, there's going to be some very obvious consumer-facing issues. From gas prices, very expensive travel, price hikes in logistics, you name it.

I think the timeline is much shorter than that. These oil-producing nations have not invested in a lot of storage, because they usually ship everything out immediately. Once you no longer have anywhere to put the oil, you have to start shutting down production, and it is not easy to restart. We'll be at that point in maybe another week and a half.

Is there anyone here with a deeper understanding of oilfield geology and engineering? Given that:

- storage facilities in the region are limited and in some cases almost full

- mature oil fields need constant water injections to pump out the remaining crude

How likely is it that stopping crude extraction (and therefore the water injections) will permanently damage the oil reservoirs?

And based on that is it possible that countries with this type of mature oil fields would consider simply dumping the excess crude that can't be stored anymore in the desert or in the Gulf of Persia?

There is one way that production could resume, of course: a public peace that is both real and accompanied by Iranian broadcast of orders to their coastal troops to stand down.

Given the ongoing campaign to assassinate Iranian diplomats who may be willing to negotiate peace whilst leaving hardliners alive, the only question is what kind of inducements will be necessary to get them to agree?

I don't think anything short of the US completely cutting ties with Israel would make Iran consider backing down at this point. And even then, I expect they'll continue directly attacking Israel.

Such a change given Iran was one of the few Middle-Eastern countries to approve of the UN resolution calling for the formation of Israel.

Not exactly a recent change. Since the '79 revolution Iran has had a pretty hostile position against Israel and the US. A big part of that hostility was because the US and the UK overthrew their democracy to install a puppet dictator in '53.

Indeed. Having petroleum reserves is almost always a curse. Norway seems to be the only country to have escaped unmolested.

Everyone Iranian leader who is killed is post-facto named 'moderate', with very little proof of being moderate while alive.

A few critical items beyond oil are also now in short supply:

Fertilizer, which is kind of important right now since it's springtime and farmers are planting crops around the world.

Plastic, without which modern hospitals can't operate.

Aluminum.

The list goes on, this was the dumbest war in our lifetimes but it's the culmination of a lot of previous stupidity that made it all possible.

The people who started this war are authoritarians and, let's be honest, straight up criminals, who did it to entrench their grip on their own domestic politics.

Already feeling this even in Brazil... Right when we got inflation under control for a couple of years.

After thinking it over I'm on the side of the people of Iran. Why aren't they blowing up refineries in Corpus Christi, Texas?

I’m probably missing some subtext or sarcasm here but because they don’t have ICBMs to reach the US?

To state the obvious:

1) It is not clear that the people of Iran actually want to blow up refineries in general right now, but living in an autocracy they don't have much of a choice.

2) Because there is a pretty big ocean between them and most American civilians/infrastructure (this also enabled past colonial powers to wage war very pretty cost effectively and at their convenience). I'd like to argue that the prospect of retribution on home soil is important to stem aggressive wars, but at least for medieval Europe this apparently did not work that well either.

(1) is written as if other forms of govt like a typical liberal democracy in the west or Europe give their citizens much of a choice.

The buried lede: Israel did an unprovoked attack on Pars and Iran immediately retaliated by attacking QatarEnergy, which has major LNG partnerships with US oil companies.

And it's important to not that until that point, both the US and Israel had not been attacking any of the Iranian production and export infrastructure, only some depots (and refineries?) for domestic use.

Good. I hope gas becomes so unaffordable the US economy collapses. Maybe they'll lose some weight and it'll improve the healthcare situation.

It seems highly unlikely that the US will magically have trains and more walk-able living because gas is unaffordable. Especially if it was a drastic and sudden shock of supply. Myself as much as anyone is not in favor of the reliance the US has on cars and non-renewable energy, but causing chaos is not the way to do it.

This is an interesting point. Supposing this sudden shock happens, wouldn't American towns, counties, and the like, run to buy buses and start providing emergency bus services all around to all those suburban areas where people couldn't afford gas anymore? Or at least, this is how I imagine a sane response would be.

There'd be a shortage of buses at first, but I also suppose it'd relatively easy to adapt current North American car manufacturing plants to start manufacturing buses.

But that's just an uninformed guess. Am I too much off base in this?

I went to school for industrial engineering and have worked in manufacturing the last decade or so.

Bus production would be an entire refactoring of an auto factory. Tons of equipment would need to move around, electrical conduit would need to be re-run to different places, much of the existing equipment would be too small. The equipment would need to be ordered from suppliers who already have the next couple months to years of business booked, new suppliers sourced and contracts signed, etc. On an American timeline, I can't imagine it being done in under a year if you threw money at every problem aggressively.

We did change some auto plants to manufacturing airplanes and airplane components for WWII, but there was a lot more human labor involved, manufacturing tolerances were more loose, and we had widespread support of the American public to do what we needed to make things happen. It'd be incredible to see the War Powers Act implemented to publicly fund bus transportation, but I cannot fathom that occurring with this administration.

after Iran and Israel attack gasfields

After Israel attacked gasfields and Iran retaliated. Iran didn't start any of this.

“Oil and gas prices jump after US-proxy Israel attacks Iranian gasfield infrastructure, and after Iran responds in kind after having promised to do so.”

is a headline that reflects reality and doesn't finesse the details -- I should really become a headline writer, I'm clearly better than whoever is employed by The Guardian.

At the very least it should be "Oil and gas prices jump after Israel and then Iran attack gasfields"

Putting Iran first might lead some to believe this was Iran-initiated, which of course is probably the intention.

is israel a US proxy? that's feeling a little backward right now.

I don't get why the prices jumped so much - looks like panic and hoarding because:

- The Middle East produces roughly 30% of the world's oil

- But about 20% of total global oil consumption flows through this strait (less than 30% because of of domestic consumption and some pipelines avoiding strait)

I would understand if prices increases e.g. 50% but like more than 100% seems like a panic or manipulation

Oil demand is mostly inelastic. No matter how much or how little is produced, those who need it NEED it, so they'll compete with all others who similarly need it. The richest ones from among them get the oil first, and the poorest get nothing. The end price ends up being a function of how much oil is available versus how much the richest countries' absolutely irreducibly need for oil is versus how much wealth those countries can throw at the problem not to be left without before someone else with deeper pockets gets it.

I agree. Why is domestic oil linked to global oil price?

We are energy independent? Big Oil is milking US.

if someone wants to buy American oil for twice the price overseas then it’s not gonna go to your local gas station…

Surely there are some shipping expenses though? For Global Oil.

Versus the Colonial Pipeline that is prevalent on the Eastern Half of US.

Uniting to fight gasfields might be just the common enemy that Iran and Israel need to finally mend this relationship.

If you had a secret agenda to reduce the world's carbon production, this is one way to go about it.

Except for all these burning gas and oil fields.

Time to get out our “I did that” stickers, right?

I think about this every time I get gas. What was the claimed link between Biden and gas prices anyway? I feel like I missed something.

It will probably go back up to about 5 grams of Gold per barrel, which was the past peak, and hold there.

More troubling if you're paid in dollars, the end of the Petrodollar is likely now on a very accelerated timeline. Based on history, I expect a 60-80% drop in our standard of living when that happens.