________
How the US Pulled off an Armed Robbery of the World's Energy Supply and Created the Petrogas-Dollar
A forensic investigation into how Washington leveraged the war in Iran to replace Nord Stream, save the dollar, and establish total command over the world's fuel from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean.
By Richard Medhurst | May 2, 2026
It's tempting to believe that the US war machine is finished. Militarily, Iran have indeed dealt the US their worst humiliation in modern history — one I covered in clinical detail.
But in the background, Washington have been quietly carrying out an armed robbery of the world's oil and gas supply. All of it.
In just 90 days, the US have executed an energy blitzkrieg decades in the making:
• Hundreds of strikes on Russian tankers and refineries• Disrupting a third of China's oil and LNG supply• Capturing the largest oil reserves on the planet• Establishing a global naval blockade from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean
And in the process, kidnapped and assassinated two heads of state. We are witnessing the transition of the United States from an empire into a lawless Pirate State, and the birth of what I call the Petrogas-dollar or LNG-Dollar.
The timeline of this campaign speaks for itself:
Chaos Is the Objective
In the past, the United States were very sensitive to oil shocks. Closing the Strait of Hormuz would have been a catastrophe, as the US couldn't produce enough oil to meet demand.
But today, they are the world's largest producers of oil, gas, and refined products, and the planet’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Many still buy into the old mantra that high oil prices are bad for the US, but the opposite is true. For the first time during a global shortage, the dollar isn't crashing while gold surges — it's the other way around. High energy prices aren't a threat to Wall Street anymore — they are in fact the objective.
It’s no coincidence the US became the world's #1 exporter of LNG after the Ukraine war. The gains were multifold: the US went from supplying just 9% of Europe's energy to being Europe's number one source of coal, oil, and LNG.
When Condoleezza Rice or Joe Biden said Europe should want to "depend" on US energy, and promised to "put an end" to Nord Stream — they meant it literally. By sanctioning Moscow and blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, the US didn't just hurt Russia — they turned Europe into a permanent US client, securing long term profits, and cementing the Petrogas-dollar.
The US is separated by two oceans, which makes delivering gas expensive. No one was ever going to buy American LNG with cheap Russian gas just next door. So the US killed off the competition.
Not just at Russia's expense, but eating half of Qatar’s LNG share in the process:
Finishing the Job in Europe
The US, however, are now at full export capacity. They have the gas, but can't ship it fast enough to satisfy the market that they cleared. Washington realized that they didn't need to build more infrastructure to win. They just needed to delete the competition — again.
After the US, Qatar and Australia are the world's largest suppliers of LNG and America’s biggest competitors.
Just as Washington used the cover of the Ukraine war, sanctions, and Nordstream bombings to force Russia out of Europe — similarly, they used the cover of the Iran war to finish off Qatar's position as a global LNG player.
By forcing Doha to declare force majeure on March 4 within the first week of the war, then triggering the retaliatory strikes on Ras Laffan on March 18, Washington took the world's largest gas field out of the picture — crippling Iran, and sidelining Qatar in one fell swoop.
The claim that Israel carried out this specific strike without informing Washington, is both politically and logistically impossible — made only more suspicious by Netanyahu and Trump's attempts to profusely distance the White House from it.
Regardless, there can be little doubt that the US and Israel provoked this. At that point, they had spent 3 weeks working their way up the escalation ladder; bombing Iran around the clock, and gauging their responses. Moreover, Tehran had made it abundantly clear (as early as March 12), that any strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure would be met with "an eye for an eye".
Please go to substack to continue reading and to view the extensive graphs and charts.
________
More:
No Peace, No War, $126 a Barrel
The timeline of this campaign speaks for itself:
Chaos Is the Objective
In the past, the United States were very sensitive to oil shocks. Closing the Strait of Hormuz would have been a catastrophe, as the US couldn't produce enough oil to meet demand.
But today, they are the world's largest producers of oil, gas, and refined products, and the planet’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Many still buy into the old mantra that high oil prices are bad for the US, but the opposite is true. For the first time during a global shortage, the dollar isn't crashing while gold surges — it's the other way around. High energy prices aren't a threat to Wall Street anymore — they are in fact the objective.
It’s no coincidence the US became the world's #1 exporter of LNG after the Ukraine war. The gains were multifold: the US went from supplying just 9% of Europe's energy to being Europe's number one source of coal, oil, and LNG.
When Condoleezza Rice or Joe Biden said Europe should want to "depend" on US energy, and promised to "put an end" to Nord Stream — they meant it literally. By sanctioning Moscow and blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, the US didn't just hurt Russia — they turned Europe into a permanent US client, securing long term profits, and cementing the Petrogas-dollar.
The US is separated by two oceans, which makes delivering gas expensive. No one was ever going to buy American LNG with cheap Russian gas just next door. So the US killed off the competition.
Not just at Russia's expense, but eating half of Qatar’s LNG share in the process:
Finishing the Job in Europe
The US, however, are now at full export capacity. They have the gas, but can't ship it fast enough to satisfy the market that they cleared. Washington realized that they didn't need to build more infrastructure to win. They just needed to delete the competition — again.
After the US, Qatar and Australia are the world's largest suppliers of LNG and America’s biggest competitors.
Just as Washington used the cover of the Ukraine war, sanctions, and Nordstream bombings to force Russia out of Europe — similarly, they used the cover of the Iran war to finish off Qatar's position as a global LNG player.
By forcing Doha to declare force majeure on March 4 within the first week of the war, then triggering the retaliatory strikes on Ras Laffan on March 18, Washington took the world's largest gas field out of the picture — crippling Iran, and sidelining Qatar in one fell swoop.
The claim that Israel carried out this specific strike without informing Washington, is both politically and logistically impossible — made only more suspicious by Netanyahu and Trump's attempts to profusely distance the White House from it.
Regardless, there can be little doubt that the US and Israel provoked this. At that point, they had spent 3 weeks working their way up the escalation ladder; bombing Iran around the clock, and gauging their responses. Moreover, Tehran had made it abundantly clear (as early as March 12), that any strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure would be met with "an eye for an eye".
Please go to substack to continue reading and to view the extensive graphs and charts.
________
More:
No Peace, No War, $126 a Barrel
Knocking out each others energy facilities continues:
Ports, Rails, Oil: Key Targets Of A Week Of Russia-Ukraine Strike Exchange
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.