Conrad Kind Of Left The Other Shoe Hanging
Recently, when I posted a picture with lettering in Cyrillic and teasingly refused to translate it. I know, I know, I'm so bad. I'm a very bad lad. Let's have the picture up again. Art!
"1 Barrel" of quantity 158.988 litres, and it's "Oil", meaning Urals Crude, the primary oil the Ruffians produce. For Lo! today we are going to be looking back at history, when things went horribly wrong for the Sinister Union, and today, when things are going horribly wrong for Mordorvia. Get yourself a bucket of popcorn and settle in. Thanks to 'Paul Warburg' and his vlog, and Twitter with their details about specific oil issues.
Oil, as you should surely now, is the lifeblood of a modern industrial economy, providing fuel for transport on land, sea and in the air. There are exceptions to this, in the field of naval and marine engineering, where very large ships and submarines use nuclear reactors for power. Oil also fuels power stations.
ANYWAY back in the day the Sinister Union banked heavily on oil and gas exports to prop up it's dismally inefficient economy. Art!
Before, you know, collapsing and disintegrating, the USSR's economy in terms of GDP was outperforming the South Canadian one, which was a source of much hilarity to the Sinisters, who claimed that capitalism was dead -
A bit ahead of time. Art!
What the Sinister's didn't mention, because it would have been embarrassing, was that their economy in the Eighties was in trouble thanks to a long and unsuccessful war being waged in Afghanistan. They were expending billions of rubles with absolutely no compensation to their economy, which sounds eerily similar to -
The other part of their economic miracle was nothing more than a gamble that oil and gas prices would keep continuing to rise, which proved to be spectacularly misplaced. Art!
Oooops.
Well now, thanks entirely unintentionally to Captain Capslock's tariff tantrum, the global price of oil has seen another crash, which is bad for the global economy, and individual nations, and for Ruffia more than most. You see, the Ruffian budget for 2025 was predicated on a price Per Barrel - hereafter PB - of $75. Here we are in the fourth month of the year and their Urals Crude is now selling at roughly $50 P.B. Art!
This matters in the long run because losing 30% of your value per barrel really eats into profits. In March the Ruffians were exporting about 3.25 million barrels of oil per day, meaning they were anticipating earnings of $275 million per day. If the amount earned falls to $50 per barrel this means only $162 million per day, a drop of $113 million per day.
Oooops.
There is further misery afoot for Mordorvia. Paul pointed out that the market does not respond rapidly to price increases, so even if the cost for Urals rebounds, it won't be back to pre-crash levels.
It can always get worse. Ruffia's extraction costs for their oil are amongst the highest in the world, because they come from such extreme environments, and their break-even point is at $40 dollars per barrel. If the price keeps falling their profit margin is going to shrink even more and will involve selling at a loss, because they cannot afford to shut down their Siberian oil wells. If they do this the oil 'jellifies', expands and destroys both pipes and pumping equipment. Art!
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| Siberian taiga meets Magic Black Treacle |
It can always get even worse. Ruffia is not the Sinister Union. It's a lot smaller, for one thing, with a much smaller population, and is far less diversified than the old Sinister Union, which makes it's two-dimensional economy very vulnerable to falls in oil prices and commensurate drops in demand.
It can always get even worser. The Sinister Union faced very few cross-border sabotage raids from the Afghan mujahideen; MI6 very helpfully once gave the Afghans limpet bombs they used to sink river freighters, which sent the Sinisters into a mighty frothing rage of apoplectic proportions. "How Dare You Fight Back" from the bully in the room. Ukraine has been hitting the Ruffian oil and gas infrastructure very hard indeed for the past 14 months, at ranges up to 1,000 miles inside Ruffia. They are looking to scale up this mode of attack and reduce Ruffian capacity still further. Art!
I did mention diversification in the days of the Sinister Union, didn't I? You might not be surprised to know that the Ukrainians were the technical innovators of that era.
The Piano Had Been Drinking And So Has The Traffic Algorithm
Every so often I highlight how Blogger's tracking algorithm that tracks visits to BOOJUM! goes potty and adds hundreds of visitors that don't exist. Or - I dunno, maybe they do? The electronic digital version of the spirits that inhabit Duon Village or Industrial Complex #3*? Art!
I can see today's figures (that is, for Saturday) being barely credible, but 433 for an unremarkable Friday? Pull the other one, it has an Ondes Martinot attached to it.
"The War Illustrated Edition 206 11th May 1945"
Definitely the fag-end of the war in Europe BRITISH SLANG YOU BAFUNES and Conrad has avoided any that focus on the concentration camps, as there is a limit to how much grimness the blog wishes to bring into the world. Art!
This is the situation as of 6th April 1945, where what is left of Germany is being squeezed between the Western and Eastern Fronts. By this time the Teuton defence was collapsing, short of everything and outnumbered everywhere. Their forces on the Eastern Front were desperately trying to delay the Sinisters, to allow their compatriots to surrender to the British or South Canadians, whom could be relied upon to honour the Geneva Convention.
Those ex-PoWs at top are British, waiting for an airlift to carry them home. Those at the bottom are French, who were probably grateful that it was the South Canadians who liberated them, as it would have been embarrassingly awkward had it been the British. Incidentally, the Vichy government used to excuse it's cowardly collaboration with the Nazis as being in the best interests of French PoWs, who would thus be allowed home. Hmmmm not these chaps, whom the caption says were held for five years.
Conrad Braves The Snake
Your Humble Scribe has been to Dungworth today, meaning a journey through the wonderful scenery along the Snake Pass, which I last traversed in summer last year. You have to pay more attention to the road than the landscape, as the A56 is narrow, twists a lot, has sharp bends and yes, there was a stray sheep on the verges on my return journey. Well, the old roadworks centred on the landslip section of the A57 are still there. Art!
Derbyshire County Council haven't repaired anything here. There's also a new set of traffic lights at a different location. Art!
I didn't get the chance to take a picture, but that retaining wall is now hanging over at a 45º angle and looks set to collapse into the burn any week now. Since I'm going back tomorrow I may be able to get proof that I am not raving.
Because I can, before you ask.
Later, pilgrims.
* "Missing: The Other Side" reference for you there
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