For Lo! We Will Be Dealing With Two Fluids Today
Namely, oil and water, which convention has it cannot be mixed together, as the two will always separate out. This has been a truism since Biblical times, though not since the latter years of the last century, where Conrad has seen an emulsion created by using ultra-high frequency vibration to mix the two, wh
ANYWAY what we need now is a clickbaity image as imported by our resident image-mage, Art. Art!
Oil and water, just perhaps not how you imagined it.
Okay, let's lead with oil, and an annotated analysis from Joe Blogs courtesy his Youtube vlog on the subject of Ruffian oil. As you should surely know by now, oil (and gas) exports are what keeps the Ruffian state alive, because they have nothing else to offer that the world needs. Yes yes yes, they used to export lots of weaponry abroad; of late this market has shrunk significantly - one wonders why? Art!
This graph shows what happened to the Ruffian oil exports in terms of millions of barrels per day; the figure fell off a cliff when Covid arrived and, more significantly, never recovered to it's pre-Covid level. In detail, they were exporting around 11 million Barrels Per Day, which only got back up to 9.87 million BPD as of right now.
You can see the hit on the chart when the Special Idiotic Operation came into play, and the Ruffian petrochemical industry was hit by the flight of Western technology, capital and expertise. Art!
This chart only goes up until July 2023, yet it gives you an idea of the decline in Ruffian oil output. The production cuts that were 'voluntarily' made of 500,000 and then an additional 300,000 BPD are staying in place until 2024, at a loss in revenue of $31billion. Not chump change. The ban on gasoline export is still in place, which is bewildering when you consider Ruffia desperately needs the income from this source and is down by about $8 billion from this alone. The official Ruffian reason/excuse/lie <delete least unlikely> was that 'The refineries are down for maintenance', a move never made in over 30 years of these oil fields producing oil. 'We are dangerously low on fuel to bring in the 2023 harvest' would be a tad too truthful and humiliating. Art!
Joe made the very salient point that these Ruffian 'voluntary' cuts, supposedly in line with OPEC plans, may be nothing of the sort. You see, with the loss of Western firms, Ruffian ones can no longer repair or maintain refining and well technology; it's entirely possible that the failure to achieve pre-Covid production levels was because the wells were kaput and couldn't be re-started. Most of them are in conditions like those above; Arctic. If the oil stops flowing it destroys pipelines and pumping equipment, meaning you're not going to be using that well ever again and need to create new ones. Except, with the Western know-how long gone, that's not possible. Art!
Putin's least-favourite protesters
In the way these things dovetail together, whilst the price of Ruffian Urals oil has now risen to about $73 per barrel, for the first time this year, demand for oil from China is now falling thanks to a cooling-off in their economy.
Can't win for losing, I suppose.
Watch Out For Di-hydrogen Monoxide!
The world's chemists think this is the funniest joke extant, because it's an hokey alternative name for H₂O, or water to you and I. Edna and I were lucky to avoid it falling from the heavens upon us this morning. Elsewhere in space and time other people have found that it is indubitably one of life's essentials. Art!
What you see here is a schematic of the water supply to the Egyptian Expeditionary Force as it crossed the waterless wastes of the Sinai Desert, en route to Palestine. This was desert as imagined, lots of sand dunes with no oases or springs or wells, water coming in a pipeline adjacent to the railway tracks. Reservoirs were constructed and filled, to avoid running short, with pipe-stands to fill trucks that would carry it further forward.
With not a little irony, although the advance was parallel to the sea, shipping could not be used to supply the EEF, as the shallows were treacherous and unsafe in the winter season. Yes, you do get winter in the desert.
"Hambantota"
Thank, Steve, for conjuring up this name as of last week. Your Humble Scribe had no idea who or what it was. It does have the ring of an Assyrian king, you know, one of those fops who had their beard coifed into oiled coils and whom waged war against insular Greek polities when he got bored. Art!
But no. What, then? An native tribe from West Africa, who lived by cattle, fighting and drinking? Based in and around what used to be Togoland?
Still no. Art!
'Tis a city and port in Sri Lanka, rather controversial because The Populous Dictatorship constructed the port for the Lankies, who ended up not being able to pay for it. No problemo! said the Chinese, and took it over themselves. Art!
Thus India, which pretends to be friends with China, is keeping a wary eye upon it. Getting into Politics there so we'll stop.
"City In The Sky"
Our perspective has jumped back aboard Arcology One, splendidly isolated in orbit above a troubled Earth.
His expression of open surprise suggested that he hadn’t expected either
of the travellers to return.
‘Who’s this? Another visitor?’
‘Can we help?’
‘Is Doctor Smith back, too?’
Shaking her head, she introduced Terry.
‘Unlike me or the Prof – er, Doctor Smith – Terry has grown up in
Twelve eyes abruptly switched to stare at the young engineer, who
flushed in embarassment at being under such scrutiny. One of the six gave a long, low whistle.
‘Okay, I vote we drop the business in hand and instead interview this
man from Downstairs,’ stated a pale young man wearing the epaulettes of a
Warden.
‘Done!’ chorused the rest.
‘Take a seat, please,’ invited the Warden. Another member, a curly-haired woman with an
air of being in command, used her Tab to order refreshments, and another slid
over a table and chairs.
‘Er – are you sure you want to interview me?’ asked Terry,
seating himself slowly and looking puzzled.
‘I’m not very important.’ Ace
nudged him and tutted.
‘Oh yes,’ said the woman who had Tabbed.
‘We’ve not had any contact with Downstairs since our shuttle got
destroyed, and none for fifty years before that.’
I told you: troubled
Conrad's Compulsiveness Compounds
Coruscatingly. Allow me to prod Art back into sentience and wakefulness, with this handy-dandy cattle prod.
One reason I stopped doing the "Metro"'s Sudoku puzzles is because it always took me ages; words and letters I am hot stuff at. Numbers, not so much. Art!
There it was, partially-filled, so how could I possibly say no?
I wish I had, it took AGES to do, since it's at Medium-level difficulty, rather than the Easy ones I used to do. Art!
I'll be honest and admit I cheated and used a Sudoku-solver, but only to get five or six numbers, which is not bad out of eighty-one total. It confirmed my suspicions, which were that Sudoku is designed to get back at the West by hideously sadistic Japanese compilers, aching for the glory days.
Finally -
O boy, you couldn't make it up. DJ Tango, on the stand as a defendant, was bloviating about how he couldn't be sure how accurate a property appraisal was, thanks to him being so, so, so very busy in the White House, dealing with Ruffia and The Populous Dictatorship. In 2021. When he'd left office in the White House in 2020. Mind you, he'd probably flub things even if they were on a teleprompter. I shall try to keep Trump items to a minimum as they could easily be the whole blog three times daily. Easy content creation, yes; less easy to read of him so much. Art!
Hiding his TINY HANDS
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