A barrel of oil is not a generic unit; its chemistry dictates its utility. US shale is ‘light/sweet’, yielding naphtha and gasoline. Middle Eastern and Venezuelan crudes are ‘heavy/sour’, yielding the middle distillates—specifically diesel—that power global logistics, freight, and agriculture. You cannot run a heavy freight train on motorcycle fuel.

We are not in 1950 anymore, we can absolutely convert light to heavy and heavy to light products. Not to mention that it is also not a yes/no thing but a spectrum of products with different amounts.

Step one: billions of dollars are invested on oil refineries that have a specific target range for their input

Step two: oil coming out of the ground isn’t what the refineries need, so they blend different grades of crude oil to operate.

Step three: by 2025, the costs of the heavy crude are skyrocketing. So government prints money to subsidize the costs to hide this from the market.

Step four: even with subsidues its too expensive again, so the government begins giving refiners heavy crude straight from the strategic reserves

Step five: the system breaks when there are simply not enough heavy crude molecules to keep it going.

Step 6: this hidden stress is not noticed by the public + media. So the government provokes a conflict with Iran. Iran responds and the underlying problem becomes obvious. Iran and Trump take the blame as if this is a human-led shortage.

Step 6a: the price of refined oil products is too high for the previous global order to pay, economic collapse is inevitable for the global picture

Step 7: the world is forced into an physical oil triage response which hits the global periphery hardest and preserves heavy crude for the richer nations