Image depicts a destroyed Saudi pipeline pumping station.
My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
If last week has had a geopolitical main character, it was Ansarallah in Yemen. In under 24 hours, they managed to seize a very large amount of territory to their west from Saudi-backed mercenary groups. Tens of thousands of enemy soldiers fled, thousands more were captured, and hundreds of combat vehicles and all sorts of military equipment and ammunition are now in Ansarallah’s hands. The entire Red Sea coast of Yemen is now under their control, as well as some of the islands in and around the Bab el-Mandab, which is the narrow strait connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, which then goes on to connect to the Arabian Sea.
While Ansarallah had a pretty good grip on the Red Sea beforehand and could blockade it to the extent that traffic through the Red Sea plummeted in 2024 and 2025 and remain subdued to this day, it is now capable of much more direct control. And the strait is considerably narrower than Hormuz, meaning there is little hope for any covert operations like those of which the US regularly tries and fails to do over there. The only alternatives for the enemies of Ansarallah both now and in the future are the route all the way around Africa, which becomes even less attractive than usual as fuel prices rise into daily record highs, or the newly inaugurated Northern Sea Route under the firm control of Russia.
While Ansarallah is likely to continue their territorial acquisitions to an extent - with Marib looking like an obvious target - how things will continue from this point seems likely to be increasingly diplomatic. Yemen was once divided between North Yemen (which is, really, western Yemen) and South Yemen (which is, really, eastern Yemen), and this division reflects several genuine historical differences between the populations. Ansarallah has repeatedly stated that they have no intention to militarily occupy the south, and indeed, they ended this most recent offensive at approximately the historical border. Nonetheless, the government in once-South Yemen’s capital of Aden is considered the sole internationally recognized government of Yemen, which doesn’t sound sustainable for the future, so we’ll just have to see how the situation develops geopolitically from here, even if it’s unlikely to be militarily in the case of the southern and eastern territories.
While all this has been going on, Ansarallah was additionally applying major pressure on Saudi Arabia itself, by bombing their military airfields and, even more critically, their oil transportation and production facilities. These strikes were mostly limited to the port facilities in e.g. Yanbu and Jazan, and the Western air interceptor famine has meant that these strikes were mostly unopposed and caused substantial losses. However, Ansarallah has now destroyed some pumping stations for the East-West pipeline that spans Saudi Arabia, bypassing Hormuz for some (but not all) of Saudi Arabia’s oil production to the tune of around 4 million barrels per day, which is, in a happy numerical coincidence, about 4% of pre-2026 oil production. I’ve seen several wildly varying estimates for how long it might take to repair the stations, with some saying a few days and others stating at least a month; the damage does look pretty gnarly on the images. Of course, it might not really matter, because Ansarallah can easily just fire another missile at a station once it’s repaired, unless and until the Saudis give in to Ansarallah’s demands and end the war.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists’ destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Full text
American oil executives warned for months that the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz was bound to cause a fuel crisis. Now, they say it is here.
Commercial fuel stocks around the world have been depleting for more than six months, and strategic crude reserves can’t be tapped much further. Attacks last week shut down a crucial crude pipeline in Saudi Arabia that bypassed the Strait, stranding at least 2.5 million barrels a day from an already tight global oil market, analysts estimate.
“All these mechanisms helped to mitigate the price and supply risk,” Chevron Chief Executive Mike Wirth said Friday at an energy conference in Austin, Texas. “Those have largely now played out, and we don’t have nearly the buffers in the system that we did when it began.”
It is hard to predict where oil prices will go, he added, but at the moment, it is difficult to envision prices coming back down quickly. “I wish I could tell you that I saw some reason why things would ease, but it’s difficult right now to see that happen,” he said.
Veteran energy advisers say that with no resolution to the Iran war in sight, the situation risks spinning out of control. Diesel prices have soared to a record $6.23 a gallon and gasoline prices, which slipped below $4 a gallon this summer, have rebounded to $4.32. Some energy analysts say they have been fielding investor questions about when consumers pinched by the high prices will start pulling back on new purchases.
The Trump administration has repeatedly promised Americans that prices at the pump would decline and that energy flows out of the Middle East would keep increasing.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said at a Houston G-20 event on Monday that “the prices in the prior administration were this high anyway” and that Americans would have paid those prices permanently because former President Joe Biden was “pursuing a policy of energy subtraction and shutting down refineries.”
“If you want to write about the prices, make sure you include the word ‘temporary’ because this is a temporary disruption,” Burgum told reporters.
The White House sees two big levers it can pull to help ease prices: boosting production in Venezuela and increasing U.S. fuel-making capacity. In recent months, U.S. officials have focused on striking deals that are expected to bolster Venezuela’s oil production. In early September, they met with U.S. refining executives to discuss raising the nation’s fuel-making capacity. They are pleased with progress thus far on both fronts, a senior U.S. official said.
Energy executives and White House officials say they have had a continuing dialogue about the energy situation since the conflict broke out, and CEOs including Wirth talk to Energy Secretary Chris Wright frequently.
But Wirth said Friday that he hadn’t talked to President Trump since Aug. 3, when the president said in a Truth Social Post that the CEO hadn’t credited his administration for the oil industry’s good fortunes. Trump called on Chevron and oil companies to bring “consumer (retail!) Oil Prices DOWN, NOW!”
Some CEOs and energy advisers say they have grown alarmed in recent weeks as the conflict has picked back up, with ships and energy infrastructure being targeted in both directions.
“The advantage in most negotiations usually goes to the side that has time on their side, and is willing to be patient,” said Wil VanLoh, founder and CEO of Quantum Capital Group, during the Austin conference. Iran, he said, “is willing to suffer. Their people have already suffered a lot for many decades.”
China is in part helping to fuel the global supply pinch. The world’s largest oil importer for months had relied on its own stockpiles of crude for nearly half of its daily consumption, providing a reprieve for oil markets. But in recent weeks, it has resumed bigger purchases from international suppliers, analysts said.
U.S. crude prices have jumped 19% in the past three weeks to trade near $101 a barrel as attacks in the Middle East multiply. Iran has targeted oil tankers traversing the Strait, even after Trump and his lieutenants boasted about escorting several vessels undetected through the waterway. Houthi militants have recently launched attacks from Yemen on Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure and military sites and damaged the East-West pipeline that stretched from the Abqaiq oil field to Yanbu al-Bahr, a major Saudi port city, on the Red Sea.
Trump has vowed to impose economic pressure on Iran and ruled out sending boots on the ground. He has said he expects the war will last until the November midterm elections, but investors say they believe the war will go well beyond that.
“That was the signal this is going to stretch on,” said Dan Pickering, founder of Pickering Energy Partners, a financial firm.
Meanwhile, he said, diesel supplies are tight because of refinery outages following conflicts in the Middle East and Russia. Demand for the fuel is expected to increase as farmers that use it for heavy equipment enter harvest season. “Diesel has no easy solution,” Pickering said.
Trump has said Ukraine must halt strikes on Russia that endanger global supplies of diesel.
In March, the CEOs of the three largest U.S. oil companies, ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, warned Trump officials, including Burgum and Wright, that a prolonged closure of the Strait could lead to a shortfall in refined products such as diesel, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time. Some executives have been privately critical of Trump’s handling of the conflict.
At the conference Monday, Burgum rejected persistent speculation that the White House is seriously weighing a temporary ban on U.S. exports of refined products such as diesel. Trump’s team, he said, doesn’t believe such a move would quell prices.
“We will do anything that helps the price at home,” Burgum said. “But we’re also going to be smart about it, and not just have some idea that if we stop exporting, that somehow magically is going to help the prices.”
https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/oil-executives-say-the-great-fuel-crisis-is-here-b6b32030
Wow. I didn’t know that. I just — you’re telling me now for the first time.
It was an amazing carbon-based economy. What else can you say? It was an amazing economy. Whether you agree or not, it was an amazing carbon who created an amazing economy. I’m actually saddened to hear that. I am saddened to hear that.
♫ Ballerina, you must’ve seen her ♫
♫ Dancing in the sand ♫
So far they’re ~3% higher than this time last year. Less than 1/5th needed to make-up for the recent Yanbu pipeline disruption and nowhere close to making up for the SoH.
Amazing, i hope they bomb another pipeline