The Diesel Shortage Starts in Saudi Arabia

American drivers are paying more for diesel than they ever have, European refiners are being told their Saudi crude is not coming, and the question that matters is not whether the pumps are short but why. Washington has an answer. Vice President Vance, taking questions on a tarmac in Greensboro, North Carolina on 21 September, said gas prices are high because the Iranians are terrorizing international shipping. President Trump has said Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries are to blame. The analysts we track, recording the same day, arrived at a different cause, and they arrived at it together.

Larry Johnson, speaking on Judging Freedom about the diesel shortage, did not soften it: "Donald Trump blaming this on both Ukraine and Russia is absolutely ridiculous."¹ His arithmetic is the reason. Russia exports 150,000 barrels a day, "almost 1/2 of 1% of the global supply," which he called "a meaningless number."² Whatever Ukrainian drones have done to Russian refineries, on Johnson's figures they have not taken enough fuel out of the world to empty a pump in Florida.

The driver he named is the Houthi destruction of Saudi Arabia's East-West crude pipeline, the line that carries Saudi oil across the peninsula to the Red Sea. That loss, he said, has produced a genuine global shortage of diesel and aviation fuel, and there is no quick repair: "that pipeline is dead," and it "is not going to come back to life for at least another six weeks."³ Brian McGlinchey, on Daniel Davis's programme, described a strike sophisticated enough to remove a large share of Saudi exports for an extended stretch: "the estimates are going to weeks and we'll see if that turns into months."⁴ Daniel Davis, opening that episode, put the strategic position in a sentence: "The Houthis have Saudi Arabia in a trap."⁵

What it costs at the pump

The consequence is arriving in retail prices with nothing in between. Johnson gave the figures from his own town in Florida: diesel at $5.52 a gallon, and as of three days before he recorded, $6.49.⁶ Scott Ritter noted that American retail diesel had cracked $6 a gallon for the first time in history about a week earlier and was sitting near $6.50. His forecast for that same gallon of diesel: "It's going to be at $7 and it's just going to keep climbing."⁷

Europe is further down the same road, because its supply came through the pipeline that is gone. Ritter said Saudi Arabia's crude allocation to European buyers has simply stopped: "Europe's not getting their September allocation. They probably won't get their October allocation."⁸ Riyadh is suggesting November; Ritter doubts it, because nothing has been done about the vulnerability that caused the outage. Alex Christoforou, on Glenn Diesen's programme, relayed the message as Saudi Arabia is delivering it to European customers: "there's going to be no oil definitely not in what remains of September not in October either maybe not even in November."⁹ Alastair Crooke added the jet fuel side: Europe is roughly half a million barrels short for October going into the last quarter of the year.¹⁰

And the Saudi gap lands on a continent that has already closed its own alternatives. Christoforou listed them: Russian energy gone, trouble with Qatari gas and Libyan oil, fuel shortages in France, and a possible American ban on diesel exports.⁹ His expectation of what Brussels does next: "The vassal is going to go to the master and it's going to say, 'Please help us. Please bail us out.'"¹¹ Of Europe's leaders more generally: "They're incapable of finding solutions to problems that they themselves created."¹²

Taken together, these accounts describe a shortage that Washington cannot fix by naming the right enemy, because the fuel is missing for a structural reason rather than a tactical one. The pipeline that supplied Europe's crude and a large share of the world's diesel is dead, the state that owns it cannot pay to protect or replace it, and the power that once guaranteed both has no instrument left to use. That is the story of the empty pump, and it is not the story being told on the tarmac.

The supplier is broke

Crooke's contribution was to explain why the shortage cannot simply be bought out of.

“Saudi is not selling oil. It doesn't have money.”

Saudi Arabia, he said, has no cash reserves left after the megaprojects, and when it tries to raise money by selling assets, even its Gulf allies will only buy at a steep discount.¹³ He set that in a larger frame: "the colonial structure is collapsing in the Gulf and the Saudis are the lynchpin of that."¹⁴ The order Washington built there, in his words, "is visibly shaking before their eyes."¹⁵ And the patron is not stepping in. Trump, in Crooke's reading, is "not going to rush to" the crown prince's rescue.¹⁶ McGlinchey described Trump's handling of Riyadh the same way from the American side: "So he's whipsawing the Saudis."¹⁷ Ritter did not hedge on where the kingdom's position ends: "This is the end of Saudi Arabia."¹⁸

No lever left

If the supplier is broke, the question becomes whether the United States can restore the flow by force. Johnson's answer, on Trump, was categorical: "There is absolutely nothing he can do by intervention whether militarily or economically that is going to bring the price of gasoline and diesel down."¹⁹ The military option has already been tried. Johnson recalled Operation Rough Rider, which in 2025 put two carrier strike groups and a sustained bombing campaign against the Houthis and did not break them, and he expects Iran, which controls the Strait of Hormuz, to strike American bases if Washington joins any new attack.²⁰ Crooke reported that a planned strike on Houthi bases was quietly called off because the Pentagon concluded it would backfire, this after the Houthis had routed the tribal militias Saudi Arabia was using as proxies.²¹

The allies have drawn their own conclusion. McGlinchey pointed to the Mecca Accords, signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, as the act of governments that have decided the American security umbrella is hollow and want a regional arrangement of their own, one that would eventually include Iran.²² The economic damage from the pipeline strike is also, in his account, deterring other Gulf states from joining Saudi Arabia's war. As for the sanctions Washington is reaching for instead, such as grounding Iran's civilian airlines, McGlinchey expected them to punish ordinary Iranians rather than force a capitulation, and he placed the trust deficit where he thinks it belongs: "it's the United States that has been the bad faith actor time and time again in these relations with Iran."²³

So how long does it last? Johnson: "you're still not going to see potentially any relief until January at the earliest."²⁴ Ritter, on diesel at $7 and rising: "That's the end of the American economy."²⁵ Between those two lies the range of the analysts we track: months at the least, with the price still climbing for the duration, and no one in the argument expecting a fix to come from the explanation Washington has chosen.

Also from 21 September

Alexander Mercouris, on The Duran, read the Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election results as "a total apocalyptic catastrophe" for Germany's establishment parties.²⁶ The CDU and SPD lost ground across the former East Germany and in West Berlin, the AfD doubled its Berlin vote and Die Linke topped the poll there. "The CDU has become toxic," Mercouris said,²⁷ and of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, "he is now a dead man walking."²⁸ On his own programme the same day he put a horizon on it: Merz will be gone at some point over the next few months.²⁹

Lawrence Wilkerson, speaking with Daniel Davis, offered a view that most analysts we track do not share, and he offered it as his own conviction rather than as established fact: "I'm absolutely convinced now that the Iranians have a nuclear weapon or two or three."³⁰ From that he drew a wider claim: "Iran not only has escalation dominance in the conventional weaponry realm but also in the nuclear realm."³¹ The prevailing view on our roster remains that Iran has not built a weapon; Wilkerson's is a minority position, stated plainly as such.

Sources

1. Larry Johnson, *Judging Freedom* · Trump blaming the diesel shortage on Ukraine and Russia is "absolutely ridiculous" watch ▶ 1:55
2. Larry Johnson, *Judging Freedom* · Russia's 150,000 barrels a day is "almost 1/2 of 1% of the global supply", "a meaningless number" watch ▶ 3:10
3. Larry Johnson, *Judging Freedom* · The Saudi East-West pipeline "is dead" and will not return for at least six weeks watch ▶ 6:26
4. Brian McGlinchey, *Daniel Davis / Deep Dive* · Pipeline outage estimates run to weeks and may turn into months watch ▶ 27:16
5. Daniel Davis, *Daniel Davis / Deep Dive* · "The Houthis have Saudi Arabia in a trap" watch ▶
6. Larry Johnson, *Judging Freedom* · Diesel in his Florida town went from $5.52 to $6.49 a gallon watch ▶ 11:36
7. Scott Ritter, *Judging Freedom* · US retail diesel cracked $6 for the first time and "is going to be at $7 and it's just going to keep climbing" watch ▶ 18:59
8. Scott Ritter, *Judging Freedom* · Europe is not getting its September Saudi crude allocation and probably not October's watch ▶ 16:10
9. Alex Christoforou, *Glenn Diesen* · Saudi Arabia tells European buyers there will be no oil for the rest of September, October, and maybe November, on top of lost Russian energy, Qatari gas and Libyan oil watch ▶ 46:22
10. Alastair Crooke, *Judging Freedom* · Europe faces a half-million-barrel jet fuel shortfall in October for the last quarter watch ▶ 9:53
11. Alex Christoforou, *Glenn Diesen* · "The vassal is going to go to the master and it's going to say, 'Please help us'" watch ▶ 8:32
12. Alex Christoforou, *Glenn Diesen* · Europe's leaders are "incapable of finding solutions to problems that they themselves created" watch ▶ 46:06
13. Alastair Crooke, *Judging Freedom* · "Saudi is not selling oil. It doesn't have money." watch ▶ 18:31
14. Alastair Crooke, *Judging Freedom* · "The colonial structure is collapsing in the Gulf and the Saudis are the lynchpin of that" watch ▶ 17:46
15. Alastair Crooke, *Judging Freedom* · The US-backed Gulf order "is visibly shaking before their eyes" watch ▶ 25:20
16. Alastair Crooke, *Judging Freedom* · Trump is "not going to rush to" Mohammed bin Salman's rescue watch ▶ 16:06
17. Brian McGlinchey, *Daniel Davis / Deep Dive* · Trump is "whipsawing the Saudis" watch ▶ 1:30
18. Scott Ritter, *Judging Freedom* · "This is the end of Saudi Arabia." watch ▶ 16:43
19. Larry Johnson, *Judging Freedom* · Nothing Trump can do militarily or economically will bring gasoline and diesel prices down watch ▶ 12:05
20. Larry Johnson, *Judging Freedom* · Operation Rough Rider failed against the Houthis in 2025, and Iran would strike US bases if Washington joined a new attack watch ▶ 8:52
21. Alastair Crooke, *Judging Freedom* · The Houthis routed Saudi Arabia's tribal proxies and Washington quietly called off a planned strike on Houthi bases watch ▶ 12:34
22. Brian McGlinchey, *Daniel Davis / Deep Dive* · The Mecca Accords signal that Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan judge the US security umbrella hollow watch ▶ 3:41
23. Brian McGlinchey, *Daniel Davis / Deep Dive* · "It's the United States that has been the bad faith actor time and time again" with Iran watch ▶ 33:32
24. Larry Johnson, *Judging Freedom* · No relief on fuel prices "until January at the earliest" watch ▶ 12:51
25. Scott Ritter, *Judging Freedom* · Diesel at $7 and climbing is "the end of the American economy" watch ▶ 17:51
26. Alexander Mercouris, *The Duran* · The German state elections are "a total apocalyptic catastrophe" for the establishment parties watch ▶ 1:16
27. Alexander Mercouris, *The Duran* · "The CDU has become toxic" watch ▶ 7:26
28. Alexander Mercouris, *The Duran* · Merz "is now a dead man walking" watch ▶ 9:42
29. Alexander Mercouris, *Alexander Mercouris* · Merz will be gone at some point over the next few months watch ▶ 26:33
30. Lawrence Wilkerson, *Daniel Davis / Deep Dive* · "I'm absolutely convinced now that the Iranians have a nuclear weapon or two or three" watch ▶ 6:43
31. Lawrence Wilkerson, *Daniel Davis / Deep Dive* · Iran has escalation dominance "in the conventional weaponry realm but also in the nuclear realm" watch ▶ 7:42

By Ruins Report, a daily synthesis of what our tracked analysts said, not original reporting. Every numbered claim is sourced, dated, and timestamped above.