People Still Lose The Sight ...

 ... of the issue. No, it doesn't have to be in the US Dollars. 

The ONLY dominating reason for the primacy of the US Dollar (aka Petrodollar) in the hydrocarbons trade was not some magical financial BS, albeit not without it, no--the main reason was a perception that the US CAN enforce the use of a US Dollar by means of its grossly exaggerated military power. Period, everything else was secondary. Now, suddenly, US has been exposed as a military paper tiger and the world took a note. Can US enforce anything with China? Of course not, not to mention the gargantuan scale and diversification of Chinese economy which dwarfs that of the US. Can the US enforce anything against Russia? Well, unlike US military academies and Pentagon, military people around the world actually DO study real military science and operations. They also study REAL military history and they know the score, especially against the background of SMO. Soooo .... ?

You get the picture, right? The US zenith as global economic power is over, if you doubt it--go to Walmart or COSTCO. The main issue now is how to preserve remaining American industrial capacity and expertise. Expansion? Seriously? Military-wise, you all know by now what it all turned out to be--a simulacrum, a projection by Hollywood primarily and by Wehrmacht. US military is obsessed with Wehrmacht as happens with impressionable and obsessive child who endows some adult person with qualities this child desperately wants to posses, not understanding that this adult is just average and lacks those qualities. It is called projection. Read it, read it attentively--it implicitly answers the question why Sarah Paine is "moron with Ph.D." and why the US military is primarily a figment of imagination of people like her. I speak about it in my video today and about how Epistemic Closure looks like. Here is a simpler explanation:

The term "epistemic closure" has been used in an unrelated sense in American political debate to refer to the claim that political belief systems can be closed systems of deduction, unaffected by empirical evidence. This use of the term was popularized by libertarian blogger and commentator Julian Sanchez in 2010 as an extreme form of confirmation bias.

Emphasis on empirical evidence. That is why the US lost all of its wars and lost its grossly exaggerated status as a preeminent global power. 

Good God, They Are That Stupid.

I am on record, worse than US journos are the British ones. All of them, without exception, are qualified only for discussing Meghan Markle's lingerie. Now, here is the example of a deliberate BS, which is funny especially coming from British tabloid. 

Russia has permanently lost the Arctic to NATO. 

A-ha-ha, LOL))) The argumentation in this piece is hilarious. 

Then Putin invaded Ukraine (again) and suddenly all eyes were back on the world’s strongest military alliance. It wasn’t long before the Arctic nations Sweden and Finland were asking to join. Once they join, every Arctic country except Russia will be a member of NATO. That matters for the same two reasons every maritime trade area in the world matters – routes and resources.

So, the guy thinks that economically insignificant Sweden and Finland joining NATO, with their brown water navies, will make any difference is delirious. With Finland's eight conventional powered ice-breaker fleet designed primarily for Baltic Sea, I am sure this will ensure Russia "losing" the Arctic. But most hilarious in this stream of consciousness is this, LOL)) 

What can the UK do in this environment?

I have news for this dude--NOTHING! UK has no resources nor experiences, with the exception of Arctic convoys in WW II and sending some of Royal Navy's SSNs, to do anything in the Arctic. Zilch, nada.  Remarkably, he admits:

In other words, the UK’s role in facing down Russia in the High North is much the same as it is everywhere; strong on soft power, diplomacy, science and technical expertise but with the bare minimum of military hardware to credibly back it up.

The UK's "soft power" is obviously a joke and it is about time London resigned itself to the fact of it being nothing more than the capital of a second tier (at best) power, in Arctic it is altogether is nothing and is absolutely powerless, even in the wet dreams.  It is especially preposterous to read this drivel from the former RN officer. But even larger issue here is WHY this drivel was written when the whole combined West's Arctic capabilities are still dwarfed by that of Russia's. 

Meanwhile, here is some serious news:

Indian refiners have started using Chinese yuan instead of US dollars to pay for some oil imports from Russia, Reuters reported on Monday, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter. According to the sources, India’s biggest buyer of Russian crude, Indian Oil Corp, became the first state refiner to pay for some Russian purchases in yuan last month. At least two of India’s three private refiners are also paying for some Russian imports in yuan, two other sources claimed. “Some refiners are paying in other currencies like yuan if banks are not willing to settle trade in dollars,” an unnamed Indian government source was quoted as saying. The sources noted it could not immediately be determined how much Russian oil Indian refiners have bought with yuan, adding that Indian Oil has paid in renminbi for multiple cargoes.

Make your own conclusions.

Basic Arithmetic.

$250,000 x number of days. Say, one month of renting such a storage will cost you $250,000 x 30= $7,500,00. Boy, I am in the wrong business, can I get myself a tanker to rent out? There you go, everything you need to know about current state of the oil war and availability of the oil storage in the United States. 

Daily fluctuations of plus-minus 5-7% of the oil price mean absolutely nothing because price corridor is visible and, most likely, will stay more or less stable for months to come. This hurts, so much so that some cretin came up today with this.  

U.S. companies may go bankrupt, but Putin and MBS need petrodollars to keep their citizens from rioting

Paul Brandus, who wrote this butt-hurt drivel has an "impressive" by Western "standards" background, and you guessed it right--in journalism. American journalism, I stress, no less. And, of course, Brandus has it exactly backwards when he bundles Saudi Arabia and Russia together, especially when stating a deliberate lies that Russia needs "petrodollar". It is Saudi Arabia which needs it, Russia doesn't need it at all. In fact, as already has been stated not for once, and even this loser Brandus admits it:

If the Russians were out to inflict pain on the U.S. oil patch, they’ve succeeded. But what happens over the long term? If Moscow thinks they’re going to put the Americans out of business, they’d better think again.

The issue here is not "inflicting" pain on US "oil patch"--at issue for Russia here is what to do with a gigantic bubble of financial trash, aka US Dollar and US T-bills, in the nearest future since once this bubble begins to deflate, the issue of petrodollar, which is being obliterated as I type this, will be of secondary importance. This is happening precisely because Russia, in a long run, doesn't need petrodollar and views it as a main driver behind a financial catastrophe which is in progress. Russia and China, as an example, long ago, have no problem with Rubles and Yuan oil trade.

China and Russia are actively reducing dependence on the dollar in bilateral trade. In October 2017, Beijing launched a payment system for transactions in yuan and Russian rubles. This means that settlements for Russian oil deliveries to China, which have reached 60 million tons per year, can be done without using the dollar. After Monday's launch of the yuan-backed oil futures in Shanghai, there have been negotiation between Russia and China on mutual promotion of oil futures in national currencies, RIA Novosti reported. In 2016, the St. Petersburg exchange in Russia launched Urals oil futures in the Russian ruble, and support from China could prop up Russian crude futures.

But, of course, Brandus, being a journo, doesn't read news which he doesn't like. That is why he doesn't get it, that specifically for Russia "killing" US shale is a secondary aim, not to speak of oil market being artificially "elevated" precisely to keep shale oil alive. In other words, there was no real economic sense in propping up inherently economically senseless US shale oil by pouring billions of nonreturnable loans into it. And then, of course, there is this "power element" which goes missing in Brandus' moan, because Saudis are expendable in this big geopolitical transformation and nobody would cry if this backward shithole of a country disintegrates tomorrow, Russia is a completely different player--the only country which can wipe the United States off the map, and which has excellent real industry and real economy which even such radically pro-Western neo-liberal fundamentalists as Kudrin begin to believe in (in Russian).  

Remarkably, it is precisely US client state, Saudi Arabia, the pillar on which petrodollar rests, which is most interested in killing US shale oil. Russia here is just for the ride, doing what any sensible strategist would do--use someone's efforts, in this particular case by bat shit crazy MBS to improve own position. An additional benefit, so to speak, easily gained through the effort of others. In the end, Russia doesn't operate in tankers on the scale of Saudis: 

Fleet Of 28 Saudi Oil Tankers Could Send U.S. Oil Prices Crashing In May

So my suggestion to Brandus is to calm down and start learning about how real geoeconomics, geopolitics and power balance form and work, before expressing his opinions on any Russia's topic because it is the only country which realistically holds world from sliding into a global war. Especially when one operates with such numbers, which even 4 months ago would have been inconceivable, but then again--I warned, the time of real valuation of economy is coming:

Second quarter GDP being down 45% is one of the more bearish predictions on the Street. But it could prove to be on the mark judging by the lackluster read on first quarter GDP that only reflects a small sampling of the coronavirus’ effects on households and businesses.   

Does Mr. Brandus even know when such numbers happened before? Right, before World War Two. But that would require at least some brief acquaintance with the nature of conflict and warfare. So, no matter what Brandus and his ilk write on the issue, they will never grasp a full picture of the current events and they better pray that these events remain only in the realm of economic conflict without spilling into the realm of a practical military confrontation, which is far closer than Mr.Brandus can ever wrap his brain around. Especially when proper valuation of the US economy completes and we all will see the actual scale of devastation inflicted upon majority of Americans as a result of mindless and criminal robbery by the American financial class.