Whats the normal stockpile? Isn't the entire US national strategic oil reserve only enough for like 1 month of US usage? 6 weeks of stockpile does not seem like a crazy number to me.
It fluctuates wildly based on the whims of who is in charge, but the last alterations of the rules indicates 90 days of US imports (doesn't specify usage).
"International obligations
As a member of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the United States must stock an amount of petroleum equivalent to at least 90 days of U.S. imports. The SPR contained an equivalent to 141 days of imports as of September 2016. The United States is also obligated to contribute 43.9% of petroleum in any IEA-coordinated release."
United has already cut flights by 5%, the article says KLM is cutting ~1% of their flights, both citing fuel shortages. If giant companies on opposite sides of the Atlantic, are saying this is an issue, it's probably worth taking their word for it
The strategic oil reserve is crude oil. It has to be sent to a refinery before it can be made into things like jet fuel. Some refined products don't have a long shelf-life so it is only manufactured to meet demand.
That "6 weeks" probably reflects oil that is already in the refinery supply chain and is therefore deliverable over the next several weeks. The issue is that the top of that funnel is not being refilled.
The US is an exporter of jet fuel but places like Europe and Asia or more exposed to bubbles in the supply chain.
For jet fuel? The article does not say, but if they are correct in predicting shortages in six weeks, then the stockpile (if any) is not terribly large.
> Isn't the entire US national strategic oil reserve only enough for like 1 month of US usage?
In any case, whatever it is, crude oil is not yet jet fuel. The crude has to be refined to output jet fuel (and other oil byproducts), and some amount of gulf refinery capacity is also offline due to one or both of damage or inability to export via sea through the strait.
Assuming that this is in any shape or form correct, why hasn't rationing started? Six weeks at normal flight capacity is an insane amount of fuel, rationing it out for transport of critical goods and travel, will stretch it for years. If the plan is to just burn through the existing stock I'd argue that someone is acting incredibly irresponsibly.
Perhaps rationing has already started? My coworker and his family received notice today that their flight to France was cancel. Part of the message said:
"The disruption is caused by extraordinary surge in oil prices followed by unpredictable fuel supply shortage constraints across the aviation industry outside our control. As a result, we are unable to operate this route in a responsible and sustainable manner."
From what perspective? The individual flight operators maximize their earnings by running as many flights as they can, and charging as much as they can. Individuals who need transportation also maximize their utility from the same thing.
The cancellations are because of rising prices, that doesn't mean they can get fuel, just that the current price makes the destination unprofitable. (Technically this should free up some fuel).
But I was thinking from a political perspective, allowing airlines to just fly destinations that frankly aren't needed, like vacation hotspots, seems ill advised, if you truly expect to run out off fuel. The reality is that Europe won't run out of jet fuel, it's airlines can pay for the fuel it needs, for the destinations it requires, but prices will go up. Poorer countries will run out, because the fuel is worth more in Europe and will be redirected.
> allowing airlines to just fly destinations that frankly aren't needed
What exactly is a "needed" destination and who decides that? Who is going to shoulder the financial loss for banning airlines from flying to popular spots?
If you ban airlines, why not other industries too? Why not private individuals too?
Rationing in Europe is hard because thanks to free travel it has to be done in all of Europe all at once otherwise people are just gonna go and shop where it's more available, causing problems for neighboring countries, and doing anything at a EU level is incredibly slow and full of bureaucratic rigmarole.
The EU is by its construction a trade harmonization organization, it's not built for acting quickly and dealing with crises.
It's not like Europe is actually running out of fuel. 20% of the world's oil passes through the strait of Hormuz, but closer to 10% of Europe's oil imports. They get a lot of their oil from Norway, the US, Libya, Kazakhstan, etc.
Losing that much oil hurts. But it's entirely in the realm of what market forces can deal with. As storages empty prices rise, which lowers demand. There's already reports of multiple airlines suspending some of their flights because they aren't economically viable right now
As pointed out in the oil crisis article[0], the reduction that led to the 1970's oil shock was about 5%. Effectively eliminating 15% to 20% of global production capacity is going to be a pretty damn big deal.
I think you are mistaking "oil" (crude oil) as a straight stand-in for jet fuel. The former is a raw material (one that has a lot of "flavors"), whereas the latter is one possible product from refinement of that raw material. It should be noted that not all refineries are setup to produce jet fuel, and not all crude oil is viable for making jet fuel. I don't know the details about Europe's mix on refineries an d viable crude oil supplies.
As it happens, about 75% of Europe's jet fuel comes from the Middle East (I don't immediately have numbers for what of that goes through the Persion Gulf). That percentage puts it outside of the range you can correct with market changes (other than most flights don't fly... that is pretty drastic).
The distribution of jet fuel is not uniform. Some regions are unlikely to experience shortages while others are already rationing. Global supply chains aren't perfectly elastic, shortages are a local phenomenon. Rationing in the US, for example, wouldn't make sense because physical shortages are unlikely to exist there; the US exports jet fuel and has a completely domestic supply chain. Market prices will increase but the product will physically be there.
An airline can only schedule flights if fuel is guaranteed to be available at both ends. If they fly their plane to a part of the world experiencing severe shortages, the plane may become stranded there because there isn't fuel to fly it back.
Only when the prices raise to the point that low demand leads to actual flight cancellations. The demand for fuel is much less flexible than the demand for tickets.
More than 6 weeks of refined product also tends to be hard to maintain - moisture, bacterial/fungal growths (really - especially in kerosene derived products), oxidation/gumming (usually more of a problem in lighter fractions like gasoline).
Even 6 month type stockpiles usually take special regular maintenance procedures.
In the USA, the available supply of gasoline is normally 21 or 22 days. The press occasionally trumpets this number, and people react with horror. But, hey, it's just normal. IDK about Europe, but 6 weeks of jet fuel does not surprize me.
Does jet fuel go bad in the same way as gasoline? Might not be possible to keep enormous amounts on hand without a FIFO reservoir. Or would they normally keep oil on hand and refine it as required?
Fuel goes bad mostly only when mixed with bio fuel, which allows bacteria to grow which does not happen for pure fossile fuel. Additives may degrade, too - but they can be mixed after long term storage. So jet fuel which is basically identical to diesel (except additives) can be stored unlimited.
Petroleum diesel and jet fuel degrade via oxidation, hydrocarbons react with oxygen to form gums, varnishes, and sediments. Biocontent does accelerate degradation but without additives most diesels will be severely degraded at most in 12 months. That’s before we get into water contamination and fun things like Cladosporium resinae.
6 weeks stored isn't surprising, but what's happening now is that they are getting their last deliveries from the Gulf (those ships that left before this idiotic war began). They won't be getting resupplied until the Strait of Hormuz is open and then probably weeks after that for the deliveries to arrive.
In some ways it's as if the universe is conspiring to stop people traveling so much and burning so many fossil fuels. When COVID hit, we had severe curtailing of travel for a while. Now we have insanity fueling (heh) another disruption that may cause a even larger hit to travel. This story is about air fuel, but I'm sure that we'll be seeing similar effects at some point for cars, etc.
I'm sure it's just that we have the combination of economics that value hyperconnectedness and politics that are skeptical if not negative on hyperconnectedness. New problems will keep showing up, up until the day it changes.
Exactly. This is a pipeline architecture, you don't buffer more than absolutely necessary. What matters is how much fuel is flowing, not what the storage fill size is.
Right now it seems like we've entered a detente where (1) Iran controls the strait and allows oil to flow with tolls and (2) the US lies about it and pretends (for domestic consumption) like it's interdicted all tolled commerce.
Jet fuel in particular is more complicated than that. At the moment, most of the shipping passing through the straits are coming to and from Iran. I believe only a few ships for other countries have transited, none of them tankers- the GCC countries are not willing yet to acknowledge Iran's control over the Straits, since doing so would be to admit that this war was a giant catastrophe.
Iran, for sanctions related reasons, is unable to make international grade jet-fuel. Only the GCC countries can (in the Persian Gulf). And so not a single tanker of jet fuel has transited the Straits of Hormuz to Europe since this incredibly dumb war started. Iran does export raw crude to China, which refines it to international grade jet fuel, and China is getting some shipments from Iran, but China's raw crude imports have dropped, and they have responded by ending jet-fuel exports to the rest of Asia.
My understanding is that Europe can produce jet-fuel from the North Sea deposits, but they rely on imports because it is not sufficient for their consumption (My memory is that 'domestic production' was on the order of 60% of consumption). So as long as the Straits are blocked to GCC traffic there will be problems for European commercial aviation, getting worse over time.
Is there a cite for that explanation? That doesn't sound right to me. My understanding is that almost all Hormuz oil is crude, the refineries are elsewhere.
Airlines and aircraft manufacturers are already heavily incentivized to be fuel efficient. It's the most expensive part of a flight. (Sometimes crew salaries are more expensive but not by much.)
Ukraine was not able to interrupt production of gasoline and diesel in Russia in a significant way after two years of targeting oil refineries. Then attacks on pipelines and their pumping stations were not effective either as Russia was able to repair damage within days and weeks. And then all Russian oil terminals on Baltic and Black seas are operational again albeit in reduced capacity after big Ukrainian attacks few weeks ago. Apparently 50-100 kg warheads that Ukrainian drones deliver is not that effective at damaging oil infrastructure.
This may change if Ukraine can sustain what they were doing last couple of months, but so far Russia benefits extremely well from US war against Iran.
Which minute of which day did he say that? Trump doesn't know what he is going to do in the next 5 minutes. What I find rather interesting is that China started building the world's largest strategic supply of petroleum at the beginning of 2016. China anticipated Trump's Iran war a decade before Trump did.
> If replacement cargoes are coming from the U.S. East Coast, typical sea-freight transit to North Europe is about 15 days and to South Europe about 18 days. For longer-haul routes from East Asia toward Europe, a typical voyage is about 30 days, and some general Europe-bound ocean freight can take 30 to 45 days depending on route and congestion.
Whats the normal stockpile? Isn't the entire US national strategic oil reserve only enough for like 1 month of US usage? 6 weeks of stockpile does not seem like a crazy number to me.
It fluctuates wildly based on the whims of who is in charge, but the last alterations of the rules indicates 90 days of US imports (doesn't specify usage).
"International obligations
As a member of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the United States must stock an amount of petroleum equivalent to at least 90 days of U.S. imports. The SPR contained an equivalent to 141 days of imports as of September 2016. The United States is also obligated to contribute 43.9% of petroleum in any IEA-coordinated release."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve_(U...
United has already cut flights by 5%, the article says KLM is cutting ~1% of their flights, both citing fuel shortages. If giant companies on opposite sides of the Atlantic, are saying this is an issue, it's probably worth taking their word for it
The strategic oil reserve is crude oil. It has to be sent to a refinery before it can be made into things like jet fuel. Some refined products don't have a long shelf-life so it is only manufactured to meet demand.
That "6 weeks" probably reflects oil that is already in the refinery supply chain and is therefore deliverable over the next several weeks. The issue is that the top of that funnel is not being refilled.
The US is an exporter of jet fuel but places like Europe and Asia or more exposed to bubbles in the supply chain.
> Whats the normal stockpile?
For jet fuel? The article does not say, but if they are correct in predicting shortages in six weeks, then the stockpile (if any) is not terribly large.
> Isn't the entire US national strategic oil reserve only enough for like 1 month of US usage?
In any case, whatever it is, crude oil is not yet jet fuel. The crude has to be refined to output jet fuel (and other oil byproducts), and some amount of gulf refinery capacity is also offline due to one or both of damage or inability to export via sea through the strait.
Assuming that this is in any shape or form correct, why hasn't rationing started? Six weeks at normal flight capacity is an insane amount of fuel, rationing it out for transport of critical goods and travel, will stretch it for years. If the plan is to just burn through the existing stock I'd argue that someone is acting incredibly irresponsibly.
Perhaps rationing has already started? My coworker and his family received notice today that their flight to France was cancel. Part of the message said:
"The disruption is caused by extraordinary surge in oil prices followed by unpredictable fuel supply shortage constraints across the aviation industry outside our control. As a result, we are unable to operate this route in a responsible and sustainable manner."
From what perspective? The individual flight operators maximize their earnings by running as many flights as they can, and charging as much as they can. Individuals who need transportation also maximize their utility from the same thing.
Some flight operators are planning for shortages by canceling flights: https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2026/apr/16/uk-feb...
Every business is prioritizing stocking up on goods they need already. They need transport to do that.
The cancellations are because of rising prices, that doesn't mean they can get fuel, just that the current price makes the destination unprofitable. (Technically this should free up some fuel).
But I was thinking from a political perspective, allowing airlines to just fly destinations that frankly aren't needed, like vacation hotspots, seems ill advised, if you truly expect to run out off fuel. The reality is that Europe won't run out of jet fuel, it's airlines can pay for the fuel it needs, for the destinations it requires, but prices will go up. Poorer countries will run out, because the fuel is worth more in Europe and will be redirected.
Three only flights which should be allowed are to transport politicians to and from climate conferences.
> allowing airlines to just fly destinations that frankly aren't needed
What exactly is a "needed" destination and who decides that? Who is going to shoulder the financial loss for banning airlines from flying to popular spots?
If you ban airlines, why not other industries too? Why not private individuals too?
See? It's not that easy
Rationing in Europe is hard because thanks to free travel it has to be done in all of Europe all at once otherwise people are just gonna go and shop where it's more available, causing problems for neighboring countries, and doing anything at a EU level is incredibly slow and full of bureaucratic rigmarole.
The EU is by its construction a trade harmonization organization, it's not built for acting quickly and dealing with crises.
Because rationing isn't step one. Putting out a warning that rationing will be necessary if things don't change is step one.
Rationing causes serious problems. A warning in advance gives people and powers time to turn things around before rationing becomes necessary.
It's not like Europe is actually running out of fuel. 20% of the world's oil passes through the strait of Hormuz, but closer to 10% of Europe's oil imports. They get a lot of their oil from Norway, the US, Libya, Kazakhstan, etc.
Losing that much oil hurts. But it's entirely in the realm of what market forces can deal with. As storages empty prices rise, which lowers demand. There's already reports of multiple airlines suspending some of their flights because they aren't economically viable right now
As pointed out in the oil crisis article[0], the reduction that led to the 1970's oil shock was about 5%. Effectively eliminating 15% to 20% of global production capacity is going to be a pretty damn big deal.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis
I think you are mistaking "oil" (crude oil) as a straight stand-in for jet fuel. The former is a raw material (one that has a lot of "flavors"), whereas the latter is one possible product from refinement of that raw material. It should be noted that not all refineries are setup to produce jet fuel, and not all crude oil is viable for making jet fuel. I don't know the details about Europe's mix on refineries an d viable crude oil supplies.
As it happens, about 75% of Europe's jet fuel comes from the Middle East (I don't immediately have numbers for what of that goes through the Persion Gulf). That percentage puts it outside of the range you can correct with market changes (other than most flights don't fly... that is pretty drastic).
The distribution of jet fuel is not uniform. Some regions are unlikely to experience shortages while others are already rationing. Global supply chains aren't perfectly elastic, shortages are a local phenomenon. Rationing in the US, for example, wouldn't make sense because physical shortages are unlikely to exist there; the US exports jet fuel and has a completely domestic supply chain. Market prices will increase but the product will physically be there.
An airline can only schedule flights if fuel is guaranteed to be available at both ends. If they fly their plane to a part of the world experiencing severe shortages, the plane may become stranded there because there isn't fuel to fly it back.
KLM cancelled 80 flights today
160 flights (31 points, 12 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47795872
Is rationing really necessary when the price raises enough that people aren't flying anywhere anyway?
Only when the prices raise to the point that low demand leads to actual flight cancellations. The demand for fuel is much less flexible than the demand for tickets.
More than 6 weeks of refined product also tends to be hard to maintain - moisture, bacterial/fungal growths (really - especially in kerosene derived products), oxidation/gumming (usually more of a problem in lighter fractions like gasoline).
Even 6 month type stockpiles usually take special regular maintenance procedures.
Last week it was 3 weeks so improvement?
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/04/10/jet-fuel-shortage-europe...
"Shortages within 3 weeks" and "out of fuel in 6 weeks" feel like they can both be true at once.
That report said shortages, I think the new proclamation is that they run out entirely.
If they are that limited, I am shocked they are not curtailing use immediately. The time to start rationing was when this mess began.
Some airlines have already started to cancel some of their flights, to save fuel, e.g. KLM and United.
Shouldn't worry. Victory over Iran is just around the corner
One of Australia's two remaining refineries, the one that makes jet fuel, just caught on fire.
Uncertainty over fuel supplies after major fire at oil refinery in Geelong (2 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47785552 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-16/geelong-corio-refiner...
Net Zero, here we come
Time to shut down some routes (but fly the planes empty so the airlines don't lose their deals for those routes)
To save fuel and preserve slots, all routes will flown on a Pipistrel Virus
that sounds like somebody's dream job
Yep. Do "bunker fuel oil" next. Shipping is going to get squeezed just as hard.
Earlier:
KLM cancels 160 flights due to fuel shortage
https://www.reuters.com/business/klm-cancels-160-flights-com...
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47795872)
Thousands dead, millions displaced, Hegseth just quoted "Pulp Fiction" at a sermon, but perhaps this might make enough Europeans fed up with the US.
In the USA, the available supply of gasoline is normally 21 or 22 days. The press occasionally trumpets this number, and people react with horror. But, hey, it's just normal. IDK about Europe, but 6 weeks of jet fuel does not surprize me.
This comment got me wondering, how long do you think you could run your tap if there was a complete loss of water just outside your house?
I didn't time it exactly, but the last time I was able to observe it happening it was about half a minute for me.
Does jet fuel go bad in the same way as gasoline? Might not be possible to keep enormous amounts on hand without a FIFO reservoir. Or would they normally keep oil on hand and refine it as required?
Fuel goes bad mostly only when mixed with bio fuel, which allows bacteria to grow which does not happen for pure fossile fuel. Additives may degrade, too - but they can be mixed after long term storage. So jet fuel which is basically identical to diesel (except additives) can be stored unlimited.
Petroleum diesel and jet fuel degrade via oxidation, hydrocarbons react with oxygen to form gums, varnishes, and sediments. Biocontent does accelerate degradation but without additives most diesels will be severely degraded at most in 12 months. That’s before we get into water contamination and fun things like Cladosporium resinae.
6 weeks stored isn't surprising, but what's happening now is that they are getting their last deliveries from the Gulf (those ships that left before this idiotic war began). They won't be getting resupplied until the Strait of Hormuz is open and then probably weeks after that for the deliveries to arrive.
In some ways it's as if the universe is conspiring to stop people traveling so much and burning so many fossil fuels. When COVID hit, we had severe curtailing of travel for a while. Now we have insanity fueling (heh) another disruption that may cause a even larger hit to travel. This story is about air fuel, but I'm sure that we'll be seeing similar effects at some point for cars, etc.
I'm sure it's just that we have the combination of economics that value hyperconnectedness and politics that are skeptical if not negative on hyperconnectedness. New problems will keep showing up, up until the day it changes.
Exactly. This is a pipeline architecture, you don't buffer more than absolutely necessary. What matters is how much fuel is flowing, not what the storage fill size is.
Right now it seems like we've entered a detente where (1) Iran controls the strait and allows oil to flow with tolls and (2) the US lies about it and pretends (for domestic consumption) like it's interdicted all tolled commerce.
Jet fuel in particular is more complicated than that. At the moment, most of the shipping passing through the straits are coming to and from Iran. I believe only a few ships for other countries have transited, none of them tankers- the GCC countries are not willing yet to acknowledge Iran's control over the Straits, since doing so would be to admit that this war was a giant catastrophe.
Iran, for sanctions related reasons, is unable to make international grade jet-fuel. Only the GCC countries can (in the Persian Gulf). And so not a single tanker of jet fuel has transited the Straits of Hormuz to Europe since this incredibly dumb war started. Iran does export raw crude to China, which refines it to international grade jet fuel, and China is getting some shipments from Iran, but China's raw crude imports have dropped, and they have responded by ending jet-fuel exports to the rest of Asia.
My understanding is that Europe can produce jet-fuel from the North Sea deposits, but they rely on imports because it is not sufficient for their consumption (My memory is that 'domestic production' was on the order of 60% of consumption). So as long as the Straits are blocked to GCC traffic there will be problems for European commercial aviation, getting worse over time.
Is there a cite for that explanation? That doesn't sound right to me. My understanding is that almost all Hormuz oil is crude, the refineries are elsewhere.
The oil crisis of 70-ies brought in the fuel efficiency standards. This time i guess we also wouldn't let good crisis go waste.
Airlines and aircraft manufacturers are already heavily incentivized to be fuel efficient. It's the most expensive part of a flight. (Sometimes crew salaries are more expensive but not by much.)
Trump said they can always buy from the Russians
Apparently, most of the world already brought from the USA...
Yeah nice right? Telling this your prev allies after starting all of this shit :(
The only good thing is that it hurts americans too. Alone the fertilizer is a huge cost increase.
Its not just jet fuel.
But the export/import will also be hit, all these special high tech products from and to europe
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/22/nx-s1-5752447/the-u-s-is-a-bi...
TLDR- US = 2nd world.
if they do, Russia is going to buy another decade of war
price has doubled since his little "excursion" (a three hour tour?)
https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/28554873/embed
Russia has huge problems anyway because ukrains taktik hitting oil infrastructure works very well.
Ukraine was not able to interrupt production of gasoline and diesel in Russia in a significant way after two years of targeting oil refineries. Then attacks on pipelines and their pumping stations were not effective either as Russia was able to repair damage within days and weeks. And then all Russian oil terminals on Baltic and Black seas are operational again albeit in reduced capacity after big Ukrainian attacks few weeks ago. Apparently 50-100 kg warheads that Ukrainian drones deliver is not that effective at damaging oil infrastructure.
This may change if Ukraine can sustain what they were doing last couple of months, but so far Russia benefits extremely well from US war against Iran.
Why do i get downvoted? It was reported that russia even stoped gasoline exports due to this.
True, but that was only temporary.
All part of the plan I'm sure. Smart cookies at the Heritage Foundation.
Trump urges Europe to 'immediately' stop buying Russian energy at UN meeting
https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news...
Fortunately the Trump Ally in Europe that was buying much of that energy just got kicked out, so, er, now all we have to do is… er… my head hurts.
Which minute of which day did he say that? Trump doesn't know what he is going to do in the next 5 minutes. What I find rather interesting is that China started building the world's largest strategic supply of petroleum at the beginning of 2016. China anticipated Trump's Iran war a decade before Trump did.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/20/china-oil-rese...
Спасибо товарищу /s
Perplexity said:
> If replacement cargoes are coming from the U.S. East Coast, typical sea-freight transit to North Europe is about 15 days and to South Europe about 18 days. For longer-haul routes from East Asia toward Europe, a typical voyage is about 30 days, and some general Europe-bound ocean freight can take 30 to 45 days depending on route and congestion.
Thanks Joe Rogan.