Mr Global

The Dirty Fuels Cartel cares nothing for silly things like governments, or national borders, or the lives of ordinary people who they believe can only do small things for them.

And in case you needed reminding, no - there is no honor among thieves.

Inside The Secret Russian-Iranian Military-Energy-Pipeline Laundering Machine

• Russian and Iranian crude is being blended into Kazakhstan’s CPC oil exports, allowing sanctioned barrels to reach Europe under Kazakh documentation.
• Discounted Iranian oil is financing Russian military supplies to Tehran, including missiles and surveillance technology, through an alleged oil-for-arms arrangement.
• Russia and Iran are reportedly preparing to exploit the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from 2027, potentially routing 600,000–750,000 bpd through the corridor to circumvent Western sanctions.

As has been proven time and time again in multiple scenarios: ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way around any sanctions’ and, despite looming deadlines to end all Russian oil and gas imports -- with promises to keep reducing them before that -- the European Union (EU) appears to be continuing to play a sanctions-skirting game with Moscow. Under the strict terms of Regulation (EU) 2026/261, a hard legal cliff drops on 1 January 2027, completely banning all long-term Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, followed by a total phase-out of remaining piped gas and crude exemptions by the end of that same year. On paper, the West’s regulatory chokehold on the Kremlin’s war machine in Ukraine is reaching its absolute zenith. In reality, however, a massive, highly sophisticated infrastructure back door has been swung wide open for Russia and Iran to exploit, but which keeps European grids alive through a toxic, sanctions-busting military-energy swap between Moscow and Tehran.

In terms of Russian crude oil exports continuing to be transported specifically via pipeline to Europe -- which the EU has committed to completely phase out by 31 December 2027 -- the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) is the primary, active corridor through which the EU effectively evades its own sanctions framework, and that of the U.S., as managed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). While the EU has officially banned seaborne imports of Russian crude, the ‘CPC Blend’ crude oil stream -- which terminates at and ships from the Russian port of Novorossiysk -- was granted a specific legal exemption by Brussels on 3 June 2022. This carve-out was justified on the grounds that the underlying volumes originate in Kazakhstan. Since that date, annual throughput of this supposedly Kazakh-only crude oil has surged from 52 million metric tonnes -- around 1.04 million barrels per day (bpd) -- to a record-breaking 72 million metric tonnes: a massive 38.5% increase. However, over that period, Kazakhstan’s actual domestic oil production has grown less than 2%, with its true crude oil output this year having fallen significantly due to operational disruptions and strict OPEC+ quota limits. According to a very senior EU source in its energy security complex exclusively spoken to by OilPrice.com last week, the huge discrepancy between the crude oil volume rise in the CPC over the period and Kazakhstan’s own oil output volume over the period represents the active ‘ghost volume’ where a heavily discounted cocktail of Russian crude -- mixed with Iranian oil -- is being quietly blended and laundered straight to European destinations completely outside the G7-monitored Russian shadow fleet.

This is not merely an energy laundering operation -- it is a direct, infrastructure-backed financing mechanism for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its terrorist proxies around the world. Deeply embedded in the trade is Khatam al-Anbiya, the engineering and industrial wing of the IRGC, alongside the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Because Tehran cannot easily conduct transactions via Western financial networks, for reasons fully analysed in my latest book on the new global oil market order, it is allocating massive tranches of crude directly to the IRGC and its proxies to cover expenses and to pay Moscow for advanced Russian military hardware and software. This includes specialised air-to-air missiles, ‘Verba’ man-portable air-defence systems and real-time Russian orbital surveillance and satellite data that directly aids the IRGC in tracking Western and regional military installations, among many others. According to the EU source, this Iranian crude is transferred to Russia at a staggering discount of 35% to 42%, and then seamlessly integrated into Russia’s domestic pipeline matrix via a rapidly expanding fleet of non-aligned tankers in the secure, unmonitored waters of the Caspian Sea. It is then pushed into the CPC network under forged Kazakh certificates.

As devastating as this active CPC loophole is for Western policy credibility, things are set to become much worse. With Russia (and therefore Iran) facing an imminent capacity crunch as the EU’s statutory 31 December 2027 phase-out date approaches, the EU source highlights that Moscow and Tehran are organising a clandestine operational pivot to integrate the highly strategic Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline into this exact Russian-Iranian-Kazakh mix. To lay the groundwork for this upcoming shift, Moscow, Tehran, and Astana are already utilising the public corporate media to build a plausible cover story. The official press release frames this as a purely commercial diversification strategy by state energy giant KazMunayGas (KMG) to mitigate the ‘geopolitical instability’ of the Russian-controlled CPC route. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan’s energy ministry director of oil transportation and refining, Daulet Arykbayev, stated on 1 October that Kazakhstan aims to increase its crude supply through the BTC pipeline, which runs from Azerbaijan to Turkey, to 7 million metric tons per year (mtpy). To put that into context, Kazakhstan exported 1.2 million mtpy of oil via the BTC in 2025 and around 700,000 metric tons in the first half of this year, according to KazTransOil.

“That’s clearly a huge increase -- more than five-fold -- from a country whose domestic oil production is declining, and which never sent anywhere near that amount through the BTC,” said the EU source. “We believe this sudden, aggressive pivot to the BTC corridor starting in February [2027] is specifically timed to act as the primary, next-generation relief valve for the heavily discounted Russian-Iranian military-energy swap,” he told OilPrice.com. Indeed, the clandestine blueprint centred on the Northern Corridor -- the trans-Caspian land and sea route that physically links Iran and Russia through the Caspian Sea, connecting them directly into the South Caucasus transit grid -- aims to pump a staggering 600,000 to 750,000 bpd through the BTC by March-April 2027. That is a volume equivalent to nearly half of Kazakhstan’s entire OPEC+ national production quota, which is currently locked at 1.628 million bpd. “Kazakhstan’s target is highly improbable, given existing infrastructure limits, meaning the massive deficit can only be met by the illicit introduction of heavily discounted oil from the Russian-Iranian crude swap,” he concluded.

Ultimately, the upcoming February 2027 pipeline pivot exposes the official Western sanctions timeline as little more than political theatre. As the front doors to Russian and Iranian energy are legally bolted shut, the infrastructure of the South Caucasus is being systematically re-engineered to absorb the overflow. For global oil markets, the message is clear: the volume will always find a way to flow. By the time the EU officially celebrates its total detachment from Russian crude at the end of 2027, the illicit, heavily discounted flows running through Ceyhan will have already become the global market’s worst-kept and most lucrative open secret.

400 Years

The State Of Things

Wanna know what I hate? I mean aside from the Raiders, a bad tequila hangover, and Celine Dion - I hate it when it becomes obvious that the US is the bad guy.

We have a long and illustrious history of doing good things, even while trying almost as hard to hide the fact that we do some horrendously shitty things too - often at the same time.

I guess my point is that generally, we've been able to balance it out, and even to tip the scales towards the positive side - usually.

But we seem to have gone out of our way to find the shittiest people ever, and put them in charge of our government.

And that plops us right smack dab in the middle of another phase of our history that makes it pretty fuckin' clear that we're not the good guys now.

I HATE

THIS SHIT

Belle

The "Thucydides Trap" is a political theory popularized by Graham Allison describing the high risk of war when a rising power (eg: China) threatens to displace an established ruling power (eg: US).

Named after the ancient Greek historian who observed that the rise of Athens and the fear it instilled in Sparta made the Peloponnesian War inevitable, this dynamic suggests that structural tension - rather than sheer accident - makes conflict likely, as the established power takes defensive actions and the rising power demands recognition.

Today's Belle

We're seeing the Balkanization of the entire world.

Welcome to the new old world order, and the dawning of the age of the Plutocratic Fiefdom, where the Global Poker Game is dominated by rank amateurs and Dunning-Kruger dilettantes.

Bored Of Peace

About Last Night

We should call the failed ceasefire Operation Desert Stormy.

It was extremely brief, Trump's package was inadequate for the task, and he's trying to keep people from talking about it.

Doubtful

Somebody's slinging some heavy bullshit.

If Trump, and Gabbard, and Ratcliffe knew about it, then Putin knew about. And if Putin knew about it, then Iran knew about.

If Trump did manage to keep his big stupid mouth shut (c'mon - really), then he just fucked his best good buddy Vlad.

There is no truth, no respect, and no honor in the Trump regime.

Trump said US was aware of Israel’s plans to attack Iran, WSJ reports

June 13 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Friday that he and his team had known about Israel's plans to attack Iran.

The Wall Street Journal said that, when asked what kind of a heads-up the United States received before the attack, Trump said in a brief phone interview: "Heads-up? It wasn’t a heads-up. It was, we know what's going on."

Trump said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and planned to speak with him again on Friday. Trump called the operation "a very successful attack, to put it mildly," the Wall Street Journal said.

92

The fuckin' idiot we've got for a president has issued 92 separate tariff policies in the last 6 weeks.

And still the rubes are cheering. Because, apparently, they believe that if you throw a big enough tariff at somebody on Tuesday, manufacturing plants will magically materialize by the weekend - or in a few months - or weeks - or decades - or whatever.

"C'mon - he said there'd be some discomfort at first. The guy's a super genius. He's playing 37-dimension chess. Trust the plan."

None of it really matters, because Trump has created the chaos he always creates, which creates opportunities for his minions to go grubbing around, looking for some easy-pickin's in the rubble. Plus, he owns the news cycle for another day or two.

Everything is totally episodic. If today's show flops and creates a problem, no sweat - we'll just throw some different bullshit at 'em tomorrow.

In the meantime, guys with the money to spare are stockpiling things like cell phones and laptops.

The Mugging

Trump and Vance are too afraid to set foot in Ukraine because they're both cowards. And it's easier for the coward to bully everybody around him into doing what he wants, than it is for him to step up and lead from the front.

Professor Tim Wilson

GeoPolitics

It's a global poker game. There are 200 players that we can see, plus dozens more that we can't see, and may never know about.

They're all cheating, and they all know they're all cheating.

At any given time, there are deals and side deals and secret deals, and deals out in the open that are intended to mask one or more of those secret deals, and everybody is watching for the opportunity to spring something on somebody.

The US tries to be everybody's friend - or tries to make it look that way - which ends up making us everybody's enemy, because if we're friends with somebody's enemy, that makes us their enemy, even though we've been friends with them for a long time.

So actually, it's a poker game inside a perpetual round of cut-throat pool where every ball can be a cue ball, and everybody can shoot at any time - and it's all going on at the Mad Hatter's tea party.

Anyway, I don't understand a whole lot of it. And that's partly because it's very hard to understand a lot of it, and I've never studied it formally, but also because (I think) there's a big bunch of people who do study it formally, and who benefit from nobody understanding it well.

So here's a lady, named Sarah Paine, who studies it very closely, and I always get a kick out of listening to her explain some of it in language that even I can understand - kinda.

Professor Sarah Paine, PhD - US Naval War College

South Asia, Cold War, Hot War - it's a FUBAR.

Part 1:

Part 2:

An Important Concept

Dictators are invincible - until they aren't. And the collapse can come with little or no warning.

I call it Political Slope Failure - when gravity (aka: reality) overcomes friction (aka: police state tactics and puffed up bullshit propaganda about how the strong man has the powers of a god).

So NATO backs Ukraine, which sucks Putin into a quagmire, which weakens him to the point where he can't be nearly as much help to his client states as they need. So those states are greatly weakened.

Meanwhile, Biden makes the Hobson's choice to stick with Netanyahu, who beats the fuck out of Hamas and Hezbollah for us, neither of which can get the help they're used to getting from Iran, because Iran has been sending all their shit to Russia, which also makes it nearly impossible for Tehran to keep al-Assad in place. So now, Russia is destroying all the gear they can't take with them as they exit their bases on the Syrian coast, even as they beg the new guys in Damascus for permission to stay in those bases, because they can't continue their shit in Africa without them.

And it goes on. That's just the shit that I can see. There's more - because there's always more.

The thing is collapsing, and it's either total dumb luck, or Biden is as good at this shit as his reputation implies.

Ukraine - Russia - Africa

Don't think for a minute that Putin wouldn't engineer a famine in Africa and then use use it as leverage against the west in order to push for a settlement that's favorable to him in Ukraine.

Geopolitics is an unbelievably shitty game.

Starting at about 6:42

Famine has been a favorite tool of Russian authoritarian assholes for a mighty long time.

Say What Now?

What the actual fuck, Russia?

Invading Ukraine was, in itself, a war crime, and you assholes are committing thousands of other war crimes wrapped up in that one big war crime - and now you want us to believe we should do what, shudder at the thought of losing you as a partner in diplomacy?

You're like that a drunk jerk with a swastika neck tattoo who shows up at the wedding reception, dry humps the mother of the bride, ass-plants in the cake, punches the DJ because he won't play Deutschland Über Alles, and then claims that if he leaves, it'll spoil the party?

I realize this is something that has to be considered, and handled with some care because you never really know what a guy like Putin is up to. And we have to wonder if there's a signal here that we need to pick up - like maybe he understands what a tight spot he's in - or maybe somebody else on the inside is trying to signal that Putin's all but done in - I don't claim to know, but 

seriously - what the fuck are you guys even talking about?

Russia mulling downgrading ties with West, Kremlin says

• Kremlin says West is hostile
• No decision yet taken on downgrading ties

MOSCOW, June 27 (Reuters) - Russia is considering a possible downgrading of relations with the West due to the deeper involvement of the United States and its allies in the Ukraine war, but no decision had yet been taken, the Kremlin said on Thursday.

A downgrading of relations - or even breaking them off - would illustrate the gravity of the confrontation between Russia and the West over Ukraine after an escalation in tensions over the war in recent months.

Even during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Cold War is thought to have come closest to nuclear war, Russia did not sever relations with the United States, though Moscow did break off ties with Israel over the 1967 Middle East war.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Izvestia newspaper that ambassadors fulfilled a difficult but important job that allowed a channel of communication to operate in troubled times.

But Ryabkov also said that a possible downgrading of ties with the West was being studied.
When asked about the possibility of such a move, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that given the West's current approach to Russia it was one of several options that was being considered, though no decision had yet been made.

"The issue of lowering the level of diplomatic relations is a standard practice for states that face unfriendly or hostile manifestations," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"Due to the growing involvement of the West in the conflict over Ukraine, the Russian Federation cannot but consider various options for responding to such hostile Western intervention in the Ukrainian crisis."

President Vladimir Putin, who ordered thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, presents the war as part of a wider struggle with the U.S., which he says ignored Moscow's interests after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and then plotted to split Russia apart and seize its natural resources.

The West and Ukraine have cast the war as an imperial-style land-grab. Western leaders, who deny they want to destroy Russia, say that if Putin wins the war then autocracies across the world will be emboldened.

With Russia gaining the upper hand in the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two, the Ukraine crisis has escalated in recent months.

After the United States allowed Ukraine to strike Russia with some U.S. weapons, the Kremlin sent signals that it viewed this as a serious escalation.

Putin has ordered drills to practise deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, suggested Russia could station conventional missiles within striking distance of the United States and its allies, and sealed a mutual defence pact with North Korea.

The United States and its European allies still have embassies in Russia, and Russia has embassies in Washington and European capitals, though diplomats from both sides say they are experiencing the most hostile conditions in decades.

"Moscow has given up on repairing relations with the West," said Geoffrey Roberts, a historian of Josef Stalin and Soviet international relations at University College Cork.

"It would signal that Putin thinks he can usher in a Brave New Multipolar World, whilst at the same time keeping the West at arm's length," he said. "But maybe its a just a gesture, a protest, a sign of frustration with the West and/or a sop to Russian hardliners who want to escalate the war in Ukraine."

Booming Right Along

WaPo puts the usual razor blades in this apple, but one thing that sticks out for me that's barely hinted at here:

Pressure from "conservatives" to get the US to retreat - and to hide from both the opportunities afforded by a global economy, and from the responsibilities that the US needs to shoulder because of our "dominant" position - makes their shitty little plans a bit more obvious.

So I think maybe I see why there is such a strong push for isolationism. If we back off, it may push our allies to step up their game (not a bad thing in general), but it leaves them out there on a limb, while at the same time giving Putin and Xi a better shot at recovering just as we've got those two biggest assholes on the planet kinda pinned against the ropes. MAGA and MAGA-like dickheads all over the world would love to see us pull back.

Surprising U.S. economy is powering better global outlook, World Bank says

High interest rates and trade tensions pose risks to a newly upbeat forecast, though.

The global economy is in better shape than it was at the start of the year, thanks largely to the performance of the United States, the World Bank said in its latest forecast Tuesday. But the sunnier outlook could cloud over if major central banks — including the Federal Reserve — keep interest rates at elevated levels.

Global growth is expected to reach an annual rate of 2.6 percent this year, up from a January forecast of 2.4 percent, the bank said. The global economy is drawing closer to a “soft landing” after recent price spikes, with average inflation dropping to a three-year low amid continuing growth, bank economists said.

While Americans’ unhappiness with high prices remains a key vulnerability for President Biden’s reelection bid, the World Bank now expects the U.S. economy to grow at an annual rate of 2.5 percent, nearly a full percentage point higher than it predicted in January. The United States is the only advanced economy growing significantly faster than the bank anticipated at the start of the year.

“Globally, overall things are better today than they were just four or five months ago,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank’s chief economist. “A big part of this has to do with the resilience of the U.S. economy.”

The bank credited “U.S. dynamism” with helping stabilize the global economy, despite the highest interest rates in years and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Employers added 272,000 jobs in May, topping analysts’ estimates, the Labor Department reported last week.

Expected global growth this year and next, however, will remain below the pre-pandemic average of 3.1 percent. Three out of four developing countries are now expected to grow more slowly than the bank forecast in January, leaving them little hope of narrowing the income gap with richer nations.

Despite their mostly upbeat tone, bank officials warned that central banks including the Fed are likely to move slowly to begin reversing the past two years of interest rate increases. That means global interest rates will remain high, averaging around 4 percent over the next two years, roughly twice the average recorded during the two decades before the pandemic.

Global inflation should ease to 3.5 percent this year, before dropping to 2.9 percent next year. But the decline is proving more gradual than the bank anticipated. And any deterioration that causes monetary authorities to delay cuts in borrowing costs could strip 0.3 percentage points from the forecast growth rates.

“This is a major risk confronting the global economy — interest rates remaining higher for longer and an already weak growth outlook becoming weaker,” Gill said.

Bank officials also flagged global trade — which is on course this year to complete its weakest half-decade since the 1990s — as a concern. Trading nations in 2024 have implemented more than 700 restrictions on merchandise trade and nearly 160 barriers to services trade.

“Trade restrictive measures have skyrocketed. They have more than doubled since the pre-pandemic period,” Gill said.

Rising protectionism risks becoming a drag on the global economy’s already modest pace of growth. Popular support in many countries for tariffs on imported goods and industrial subsidies that favor domestic production could further constrict trade flows that are already under pressure from the U.S.-China rivalry and other geopolitical risks.

“The world might become stuck in the slow lane,” said Ayhan Kose, the bank’s deputy chief economist.

Among those likely to suffer if key interest rates stay higher for longer are the 40 percent of developing countries at risk of a debt crisis. Many borrowed heavily to fund pandemic-related health care and subsequently to cover food and fertilizer bills that soared following the war in Ukraine.

They have little immediate prospect of securing debt relief and now risk losing out on trade gains as larger economies turn inward, Gill said.

We have to keep working on the wealth equity problem. A booming economy doesn't mean we're all enjoying a nice ride that's just getting better for everybody. The plutocrats are working hard to get an even bigger advantage over normal people.

That bit about "a rising tide lifts all boats" is just peachy as long your boat isn't chained to the fuckin' bottom.

Today I Learned

• Russia's murder rate is up 900% in the last year
• The ruling clique is shrinking as Putin's helpers are valued for loyalty instead of competence
• Any succession plan that begins to gain inertia is disrupted or snuffed out
• Russia's ambitions have never been in line with its capabilities
• One fairly likely outcome is that Russia becomes a vassal state to China

Gotcha, Vlad

In the middle of "No aid is going to Ukraine until the Republicans get their heads outa their asses", Biden sneaked a few ATACMS to Kyiv, and Zelensky used them to knock the shit out of a Russian airbase in Crimea.

And then the White House lets it slip that, "Yeah, we did that - we told you guys not to fuck with our friends."

• We just got another $61B to buy stuff that's even better than the ATACMS (and all the other stuff) we're sending to Ukraine
• Ukraine continues to gut the Russian military for us
• Putin's position in the Kremlin is weakened - which in turn makes Erdogan and Orban play nice
• Xi has to slow his roll on Taiwan - cuz he has to see we're not fuckin' around, and besides, now he can look at taking pieces of eastern Russia (eg)
• Iran, you idiots watching?
• NATO gets stronger and more secure - and more likely to go along with practically anything Biden wants

Biden's message with all this: "We can be really nice guys, and we can be really great friends. But don't try to push us around. We will fuck you up."

The US quietly shipped long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine

WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) - The United States in recent weeks secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine for use in its battle to fight off Russian invaders, and Ukraine has now used them twice, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

The missiles were contained in a $300 million military aid package for Ukraine that U.S. President Joe Biden approved on March 12, said the U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official would not say how many of the missiles were sent.

The missiles were used for the first time in the early hours of April 17, launched against a Russian airfield in Crimea that was about 165 km (103 miles) from the Ukrainian front lines, the official said.

The official said Ukraine used the weapon a second time overnight against Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine.

Whether to send the Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) with a range up to 300 km was a subject of debate within the Biden administration for months. Mid-range ATACMS were supplied last September.

The Pentagon initially opposed the long-range missile deployment, fearing the loss of the missiles from the American stockpile would hurt U.S. military readiness. There were also concerns that Ukraine would use them to attack targets deep inside Russia.

Russia's use of North Korean-supplied long-range ballistic missiles against Ukraine in December and January, despite U.S. public and private warnings not to do so, led to a change in heart, the U.S. official said.

Also a factor in U.S. decision-making was Russia's targeting of Ukraine's critical infrastructure, the official said.

"We warned Russia about those things," the official said. "They renewed their targeting."

In late January the U.S. military found a way to satisfy their concerns about military readiness, which enabled the administration to move forward. They began acquiring new missiles coming off the Lockheed-Martin (LMT.N), opens new tab production line.

Biden met with his national security team in mid-February and agreed to accept the unanimous recommendation of his advisers to send the missiles to Ukraine. Involved in the discussion were national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman C.Q. Brown.

The challenge at that point was to figure out how to pay for the missiles. The United States had exhausted all of its funding options and congressional gridlock stymied further aid.

An opportunity arose in March, when several Pentagon contracts came in under bid. Biden was able to use the difference to send $300 million in assistance to Ukraine.

Biden told his team to include the long-range ATACMS in this funding package, but to do so secretly in order to maintain operational security and the element of surprise for Ukraine, the official said.

All of Crimea, BTW, is now untenable. The Russians could be leaving abruptly and rapidly. And they need to do that before Zelensky takes down what's left of the Kerch bridge.

So Far So Good

... but

a) don't count on the weather

b) don't count on ending the shit in Ukraine any time soon (it could happen, but don't count on it, cuz Russia will go on fucking with everything as long as Putin stays in place

A Question

Did the Dirty Fuels Cartel have anything to do with killing water transport in favor of roads and rail?

Just a thought.

A Red Flag (ish)

Peter Zeihan is a smart guy.

Peter Zeihan doesn't always get it right.

Peter Zeihan is worth a listen because he's not all that wrong all that often.