G7 announces plans to release 400 million barrels. This reversed an over the weekend spike.
US holds 410 million barrel SPR. Japan has the largest after the US: ~324M barrels government-held (146 days consumption). Germany maintains ~250M barrels. France has ~65M. Canada, UK, and Italy have limited dedicated gov reserves. IEA total public reserves: ~1.24B barrels across members.
BREAKING:
🇬🇧 UK has just TWO DAYS’ worth of stored gas — Daily Mail
Will then be forced to buy abroad, at ‘highest price in Europe’
Spain already seeing HUGE lines at gas stations.
All of this thanks to Trump.
— Parody Jeff (@BackupJeffx) March 9, 2026
Per Grok: There are 20 million barrels blocked in the Persian Gulf. Physical delivery: US SPR oil enters market ~13 days after presidential order (DOE fact). Other G7 nations similar timelines. 400M barrels would phase in over weeks/months at max rates ~4M bpd combined. So in two weeks a paltry 4 million barrels a day begin to trickle on to the market.
Only nine days into a war which may end up lasting months and countries are already drawing down strategic oil reserves.
With the lag, and the paltry release-tanker flow disruption to March 29 will reduce global oil inventories by 450 million bbls.
Even assuming Trump pulls off a TACO, once a full refinery shutdown is triggered, restarting is a slow, staged process and may take 2.5 weeks or more.
Oil stays elevated for MONTHS because Hormuz doesn’t reopen overnight. Pipelines, terminals, storage — all need weeks to restart. The economic damage is LOCKED IN even after the last bomb drops.
Key elements of a Trump TACO and that Iran plays along: U.S. bases are not replaced. Gulf States décolonise and renegotiate. Professor Jiang, in his game theory, also predicted that Bahrain would be the first to fall based on its percentage of Shia Muslim population. U.S. forces quietly begin withdrawing. The word “redeployment” replaces “retreat.” The media plays along.
⛔️Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar are reviewing EVERY financial agreement with Washington. All of them. At the same time. Confirmed by the Financial Times and Reuters.‼️ pic.twitter.com/zHQbFqcLH5
— Dr.Sam Youssef Ph.D.,M.Sc.,DPT. (@drhossamsamy65) March 9, 2026
Takeaway: This SPR release looks like an advanced memo Neo-Caligula Trump front running trade manipulation for Trump’s minion crooks as much as anything.
Meanwhile, in the same hour: Bahrain’s BAPCO declares force majeure, 267K bpd refinery burned. Hormuz still physically closed. Kuwait still offline. Mojtaba just named Supreme Leader (IRGC hardliner).
The refinery at Bapco in Bahrain, the main fuel source feeding the US Fifth Fleet, is now burning after a direct strike by the IRGC Aerospace Force. The site produces over 350,000 barrels per day and serves as the backbone of American naval logistics in the Gulf. pic.twitter.com/UcGxfw50l6
— Thomas Keith (@iwasnevrhere_) March 9, 2026
Russ,
You might enjoy this one, good technical discussion at a very basic level regarding Iran drone and missile capabilities.
TJ
Ted’s been making the rounds today.
I saw the first ten minutes of his other video with Col. Davis, IIRC, where he pointed out the cloud of brown dust at the base of each launch broadcast by Iran and inferred that the dust was from a covering layer of dirt that made the launch sites invisible from the air – it seems possible that the Iranians tunneled upwards and never actually disturbed the surface – making it impossible to locate launch sites before they have been used.
These aren’t the small truck-mounted missiles, these are the Big Boys
I think Ted should get his housekeeper, if he has one, to keep a few shirts ironed, for video, on hangers, in the closet behind him. I get it, he’s got better things to do than iron shirts (although it is very meditative, and intensely topological), but Col. Davis (ex-military) was starched and pressed, and it made Professor Postol look less dignified in comparison – an unfair advantage, easily corrected. Doesn’t have to be starched, or white – that shirt he was wearing was great! – just, pressed, so that we all know there’s someone at home who cares about him as much as we, his viewers, do.
73s, KD6HEX
I watched that entire video – ‘Fraud of Missile Defense Exposed’ – and Ted’s right – the past thirty years has been wasted and none of our missile defenses will work because fast-talking salesmen from Raytheon and Lockheed Martin persuaded the Pentagon to buy expensive and complicated missiles that only work if you can see the target.
Turns out, Russia, China, North Korea and Iran all use chaff as a countermeasure, so their missiles cannot be targeted by radar. Fast-forward to 47:30 to see a chaff cartridge; notice how the wire segments are precisely sized, each one is an antenna of a length calculated to absorb and return the maximum signal, so that whatever is in the cloud of chaff cannot be distinguished from the cloud, which is widely distributed.
Chaff has been around since World War II – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaff_(countermeasure) – but apparently the military industrial complex found it cost-effective to promote the idea that our nation’s military opponents are dumb. None of today’s geniuses would waste their time watching old black and white movies about World War II – but if they did, they would see that chaff is mentioned, here and there.
Ted says he has been warning the US government for 35 years but people called him “negative”. Probably threatened his employment, too. So he shut up.
I watched carefully from this point to the end of the video, curious if anyone would bring up the question of lasers. They didn’t.
But it is my opinion that a cloud of chaff is as effective at absorbing and re-radiating the energy of a laser burst as it is at absorbing and re-radiating the energy of a radar ping. The wire segments would reflect the photons and obstruct the beam and absorb the energy and some of the wires might get hot enough to vaporize but that would just create more dispersed metallic particles which would continue reflecting and absorbing.
I can’t claim to be the first to recognize this, using clouds of metallic vapor in a vacuum to absorb the laser beams of enemy ships has been a staple of science fiction, possibly longer than I’ve been alive. So credit where it is due to those far-sighted authors of yore.
Uncle Ted pointed out a video where countermeasures were deployed – but they were decoys and it was thought that these were older missiles.
We haven’t seen chaff deployed yet because Iran doesn’t need it, perhaps – the radars are all knocked out – but if they do I’m pretty sure it’s ready to go.
trump is a true psychopath….now declaring victory and he will probably get away with this unless iran continues to press the fight by locking down hormuz and continuing to bomb israel unless they get some serious concessions
It just keeps getting better. I was wondering about the use of decoy missile launchers as I was watching Uncle Sugar’s media releases of “our boys” takin’ it to the Muzzies (lolz). Thought to myself, self, why not just have a bunch of old dilapidated trucks that look like launchers or fab up some fake launchers, place them here and there and let shlomo and the US golem go for it.
Never thought of the balloon angle. — TJ
Iran’s inflatable army? 900,000 decoys allegedly tricking US strikes
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2026/03/09/irans-inflatable-army-900000-decoys-allegedly-tricking-us-strikes
…or, if balloons are out of your budget, just use some old paint or chalk…even the the kids can get involved, after all, what kid doesn’t enjoy chalking the ground and sticking it to The Chosen? –TJ
Iran allegedly painted helicopter decoy on ground to waste costly IDF missiles
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iran-allegedly-painted-helicopter-decoy-on-ground-to-waste-costly-idf-missiles/ar-AA1XAu86