Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Iran is a terrorist nation, jihad is their religion.

War it is.

Yoshua wrote:Iran .... terror attacks, which has led to rising insurance costs for tankers loading in the Gulf.

Yup. Thats 100% right.

And already at least one shipping company has said it won't send oil tankers into the Gulf at all under these circumstances. The net effect of these small pinprick covert attacks by Iran is to reduce oil tanker traffic into the Gulf of Oman.

Its a tricky situation for the US. There is no visible Iranian military attack on tankers to repel or fight against----just these isolated small terror attacks which Iran is denying responsibility for.

Cheers!

Wasn't one of those drone pipeline attacks against the Saudi's pipeline going to their export port on the Red Sea? It looks like a strategic play at bottling up oil into the gulf, then a hampering of that. It looks directed at Saudi Arabia. Is there any reason at all for the Saudis to participate in something like that? The attacks have been limited enough that they suggest asking about friendly fire. I have to ask that question. Obviously, there are lots of reason for Iran to. I'm not suggesting overlooking the obvious.

Skepticism about the major narrative unfolding is wise.

We no longer trust governments even our own. We no longer trust corporations especially those Eisenhower warned us about.

And of course the oil companies would love constarints caused by geopolitical conflict as this would increase the price of oil.

We no longer live in a world where a sense of trust and faith and goodness rules.

We live in a world of nefarious manipulations.

Nothing would surprise me.

I would never allow a young man of my blood be a pawn of scheisters.

We no longer live in a world of noble leaders

It looks like SOMEONE has some high tech drones capable of long range and significant payload. They didn't buy them at Walmart. I don't give the Iranians or their minions in Somalia that much credit. The other guys though......

This is a failure of diplomacy on both sides. I hate baiting Plant but Obama made serious inroads with Iran before losing office and Trump squandered it. When dealing with regimes on both ends that lack diplomatic skills and will never budge an inch, it's only a matter of time before the situation starts escalating.

The thing about Trump though, is he is mostly talk and little action. Most of his foreign-policy platform has been isolationist. He has yet to fully flex US military muscle and I'm not sure he really wants to.

waterpowerman1 wrote:It looks like SOMEONE has some high tech drones capable of long range and significant payload. They didn't buy them at Walmart. I don't give the Iranians or their minions in Somalia that much credit. The other guys though......

?????

Iran has a variety of military grade drones and Iranian drones are used by Iranian troops in Syria during their operations there.

like-it-or-not-iran-is-a-drone-power

The Iranians would seem to be fully capable of delivering weapon payloads by drone.


Public exhibition of Iranian drones in Iran

Cheers!

Yoshua wrote:Iran is a terrorist nation, jihad is their religion.

War it is.

Utter BS claim. It is the Wahabbi zealotry manufactured in Saudi Arabia that is the true terrorism. Claims of Iran being terrorists or terrorist sponsors is a pure lie. Support for Hezbollah as it kicked Isreali occupants out of southern Lebanon is not terrorism. Hamas and the rest of the global terrorist outfits are all Sunni. Shi'ites have no real terrorist organization to their name, unless you swallow the BS about Hezbollah.

The biggest terrorist exporter on the planet, Saudi Arabia, is a US protectorate. You never hear any baying for war on the Saudis.

I know the source is not to everyone's taste, but it is hard to check all the data. Most shipping sites have the owner's data locked behind a pay wall, but the Front Altair seems be be owned by "Front Altair Inc" which uses the address c/o Frontline Management AS, Bryggegata 3, 0250 Oslo, Norway https://world-ships.com/company/0951fdff16e87110fa619101cc811388#.XQT9yo9S_IU

According to Bloomberg John Frederiksen is Chairman/Presidenthttps://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/7536444Z:NO

And BBG's Javier Blas pointed out that should Iran be found responsible, it would be a strange turn of events since the Front Altair is owned by John Frederiksen, the owner of the Frontline Tanker company, who moved oil for Iran during the "tanker war" with Iraq.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-13/2-tankers-damaged-after-suspected-torpedo-attack-near-strait-hormuz-oil-soars

The Conspirator part of me wonders if the attack is a pay back for Frederkison supporting Iran in the past . Or is it a double bluff with Iran attacking making it look like an Saudi Arabia (or America) "false flag operation."

Shi'ites have no real terrorist organization to their name, unless you swallow the BS about Hezbollah.

according to a number of countries, Iran supports not just Hezbollah but Hamas (classified by 7 countries as a terrorist organization) or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (classified by 8 countries as a terrorist organization)

As to Hezbollah you are claiming that the hijacking of TWA flight 847 in 1985, the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992, the attack on AC Flight 901 in Panama in 1994, the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 or the 1998 bombing of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania or the 2000 bombing of the USSS Cole were not terrorist attacks or that Hezbollah had nothing to do with them? That would disagree with the findings of a number of investigations and court findings around the world

Ibon wrote:Skepticism about the major narrative unfolding is wise.

We no longer trust governments even our own. We no longer trust corporations especially those Eisenhower warned us about.

And of course the oil companies would love constraints caused by geopolitical conflict as this would increase the price of oil.

We no longer live in a world where a sense of trust and faith and goodness rules.

We live in a world of nefarious manipulations.

Nothing would surprise me.

I would never allow a young man of my blood be a pawn of scheisters.

We no longer live in a world of noble leaders

We have always lived in a world where back room deals between people of influence and power determined the general direction of civilization. To believe everything was open for Joe6P to judge based on objective facts is simply naive, and hopelessly so. In this respect the 21st century is no different than the 11th or the 1st because these realities are driven by human nature, and human nature has not changed.

I was watching the German World News program on PBS last night, and they were discussing the Gulf Attacks. They showed the US Navy video of Iranians in an Iranian boat disconnecting a mine from the oil tanker and then racing away. Then they brought in an "expert" to debunk the US claim that the Iranians had attacked the tankers.

The "expert" proceeded to criticize the US video. He said the people in the boat looked like Iranians, and the boat was exactly the kind of boat that the Iranian revolutionary guard uses, and it looked like they were removing a mine. But then he went on to say that the world shouldn't accept the American claims without evidence. He finished by saying that if only the Americans had some video evidence to back up their case then it might be believable.

You can't get much better evidence then a video showing Iranians in a boat with a mine at the tanker. Asking for another video to prove up the first video doesn't make much sense, IMHO.

-------------------------------------

IMHO Trump should've taken military action after the first two tankers were attacked. Now two more have been attacked. And, if Trump does nothing, we'll see more attacks in the future.

The Iranians tried this same crap back when Reagan was President. Reagan responded by destroying the Iranian Navy and two offshore oil rigs. The Iranian attacks on oil tankers stopped after Reagan destroyed their Navy.

Reagan-us-strikes-2-iranian-oil-rigs-hits-6-warships-battles-over-mining-sea-lanes-gulf

Trump is talking about sending the video to the UN and having an international investigation and nonsense like that. But we've been in this exact same situation before and President Reagan showed how to stop Iranian attacks. The Iranian attacks on oil tankers stopped after Reagan destroyed their Navy and two oil rigs..... Trump needs to emulate Reagan and solve this problem quickly.

Cheers!

Tanada wrote:

Ibon wrote:Skepticism about the major narrative unfolding is wise.

We no longer trust governments even our own. We no longer trust corporations especially those Eisenhower warned us about.

And of course the oil companies would love constraints caused by geopolitical conflict as this would increase the price of oil.

We no longer live in a world where a sense of trust and faith and goodness rules.

We live in a world of nefarious manipulations.

Nothing would surprise me.

I would never allow a young man of my blood be a pawn of scheisters.

We no longer live in a world of noble leaders

We have always lived in a world where back room deals between people of influence and power determined the general direction of civilization. To believe everything was open for Joe6P to judge based on objective facts is simply naive, and hopelessly so. In this respect the 21st century is no different than the 11th or the 1st because these realities are driven by human nature, and human nature has not changed.

I agree. Nobody knows here if Iran is behind this or if this is a set up by the saudis with or without knowledge of the US. Possibly to justify military response. Haven't we just been assaulted for two years by the Mueller investigation where all we heard was deep state and corruption of the FBI from the right and collusion and obstruction from the left.

With this still so fresh on all our minds I find it astonishing how quickly folks jump on to the bandwagon based on a fuzzy video clip that this was the act of Iran. How about a little consistency regarding healthy skepticism?

Ibon wrote:With this still so fresh on all our minds I find it astonishing how quickly folks jump on to the bandwagon based on a fuzzy video clip that this was the act of Iran. How about a little consistency regarding healthy skepticism?

This is right/left argument so you should not expect deep reasoning of most of peoples involved, including Plantagenet or Cog.
Trump is just their Jesus, so he must be right.
If Obama have announced *exactly* the same conclusions, they would call him an incompetent warmonger.
It is actually quite a fun to observe this kind of bias.

There is also another factor perhaps. Many peoples got bored enough to yell for WWIII as there is no worthy show in town at the moment.
They do not realize that they may well die out of excitement, should their wishes came true.

Cog wrote:Well the US Navy can put every Iranian naval asset on the bottom of the Persian Gulf, so I'd say that would be something.

Fog you're a genius. Why, another war bill that cannot be paid with Shale/Windmill/Solar worthless paper will surely mean another currency collapse like in 2008 after the iraq war that accomplished nothing.

Here, Fog, look at this stock that dropped 11% on Friday: Nabors Industries global S&P 500 oil and gas drilling contractor. NBR. Stock has gone from $30 to $2 in 5 years. Its another Coffeeguise Special...HAHAHAHAHAHA.

EnergyUnlimited wrote:Trump is .... Jesus, so he must be right.

Gosh what a silly idea

How about instead of posting silly stuff like that we both accept that Trump isn't Jesus and Trump makes lots of mistakes? Can you agree with me on that at least?

EnergyUnlimited wrote:....Obama...

We all know what Obama did when the Iranians put pressure on him. He had 3 billion dollars in small unmarked bills loaded onto transports and flown into Iran to pay off the Iranians. It was disgraceful.

EnergyUnlimited wrote: ....WWIII ....

This is't the first time Iran has been caught laying mines in the straight of Hormuz.

When Iran laid mines in the straight of Hormuz during the Reagan administration, Reagan ordered the US Navy to sink the Iranian Navy and take down two Iranian offshore oil platforms. It was a bold strategy but it worked.

It didn't cause WWWIII as you fear. What did happen is that after they lost their navy Iran stopped putting mines in the straight of Hormuz.

I think Trump is making a mistake by not learning from what Reagan did------i.e. the way to stop the Iranians from laying mines in the straight of Hormuz is to make it costly for them, i.e. follow Reagan's strategy and destroy some of their military and/or oil assets until they stop the mine laying.

Cheers!

Operator of tanker says sailors saw 'flying objects' just before attack

TOKYO

The Japanese operator ship operator of one of two oil tankers attacked near the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday said that sailors on board its vessel, the Kokuka Courageous, saw "flying objects" just before the attack, suggesting the tanker wasn't damaged by mines.

That account contradicts what the U.S. military has said as it released a video it says shows Iranian forces removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the two ships in the suspected attack.

Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo, Yutaka Katada, president of Kokuka Sangyo Co, said he believes the flying objects seen by the sailors could be bullets, and denied possibility of mines or torpedoes because the damages were above the ship's waterline.
He called reports of mine attack "false."

https://japantoday.com/category/nationa ... ore-attack

Shaved Monkey wrote:Operator of tanker says sailors saw 'flying objects' just before attack

TOKYO

The Japanese operator ship operator of one of two oil tankers attacked near the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday said that sailors on board its vessel, the Kokuka Courageous, saw "flying objects" just before the attack, suggesting the tanker wasn't damaged by mines.

Not really. The "flying objects" were probably drones. We know the Iranians have drone capability and the presence of drones doesn't mean there weren't mines.

Shaved Monkey wrote:Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo, Yutaka Katada, president of Kokuka Sangyo Co, said he believes the flying objects seen by the sailors could be bullets

You can't see bullets. They move much too fast.

Shaved Monkey wrote:...above water line

The video shows an Iranian boat coming in and pulling the magnetic limpet mine off the hull. Obviously the limpet mine was placed on the hull above the water line exactly the same way, i.e. an Iranian boat swooped in and attached the two mines above the water line. When one didn't explode they returned and collected it to hide the evidence. But the US caught them in the act using a drone with video capability.

limpet-mine-tanker-attack.

Cheers!

Obama imposed sanctions on Iran for their support to Al Qaeda. Iran's revolutionary guard corps trained Al Qaeda in Bosnia during the Balkan wars.

Al Qaeda is a Sunni terrorist organisation, but it doesn't mean that Shia Iran can't use them as a tool for their own goals. It doesn't mean that Iran controls Al Qaeda.

In Yemen the Houthis, who are supported by Iran, are fighting Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda in Yemen is supported by Saudi Arabia and the U.S...since they are fighting the Houthis and in extension Iran.

Things are complicated...not black and white.

As one would expect gCaptain is carting a lot of news on this subject looking at various angles. I’ve linked a few, many more there. These seem to be the most fresh.

Please note there have been SIX tankers attacked. If you look back far enough you can find more images of the previous damage. One was sufficient to cause some minor flooding. Also in the archives you will find that a Norwegian insurance company did forensic work and concluded it was an Iranian backed effort.

As to trust that Ibon and Tanada are discussing....I believe that the world financial economy now more than ever relies upon trust to function. Trust and shipping to move the trade that props up the economy. One need not physically start a WWIII to do great harm to the fiscal systems that global trade depends upon.

This tanker war is of somewhat limited scope and ironically comes at a time when Iran has less of a stranglehold on oil supply. None the less IMHO this string of events is unsetteling and should be view with caution with regard to investments.

https://gcaptain.com/war-risk-premiums- ... r-attacks/

War risk premiums that owners pay each time they go to the Persian Gulf have now surged to at least $185,000 for supertankers, according to people with knowledge of the market. They rose to $50,000 after the attacks a month ago.

https://gcaptain.com/u-s-and-gulf-allie ... ing-lanes/

Six tankers have been hit in the past month in two attacks near the Strait of Hormuz, through which almost a fifth of the world’s oil passes, and Washington and Riyadh have accused Iran of being behind them, which Tehran denies.

https://gcaptain.com/the-tanker-war-par ... rspective/

By Sal R. Mercogliano – The June 13, 2019 attacks on MV Front Altair and MV Kokuka Courageous, following the assault on four tankers at the anchorage of Fujairah on May 12, has raised the specter of a naval confrontation between Iran and the United States. This method of assault and conflict between these two nations is not new. The United States and Iran were embroiled in an undeclared naval war from 1987 to 1988. The genesis for the largest naval battle fought by the U.S. Navy since the Second World War resulted from the war waged by Iran and Iraq against tankers transiting the Persian Gulf. Today, the Middle East war being waged between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and their proxies eerily look like the situation at the start of the First Tanker War.