https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-ban-gasoline-exports-6-months-rbc-daily-reports-2024-02-27/
Ukrainian drones smashing into Russian refineries lately seems to be having an effect.
Attempts to influence Western elections, or a need to ration gas at the homefront? Perhaps a little of both.
Oil prices and thus petrol prices are going to go sky heigh. The conservatives will blame ukraine tottally forgetting that while ukraine was receiving US funding they avoided blowing up russian oil refineries. The US stopped funding ukraine, ukraine got desperate and has now started hurting russia in the bottom line. This was all predicted long ago but nobody listened cos they would rather bitch about ukrainian funding than actually think through what happens if u stop.
This is good for them, they will blame Biden, as he obviously has full control on gas prices. All part of putins plan to get trump reelected.
This is a huge deal for India. They are the world's second largest exporter of refined oil, and the largest in asia. This means a lot of buisness is about to shift to them. This is also after India has been negotiating cheap raw oil off Russia due to a combination of sanctions and the occasional case of exploding refineries leading to excess raw oil in Russia
It isn't just about the pumping. You can pump crude all day and still be broke. Look at several of the middle east smaller countries or even most south America pumpers. The refining is where the industry and money is really at. Cars don't burn crude oil, it has to get refined. Plastics don't come out of the ground, they have to get refined. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest crude oil exporter and they still have to rely on others to refine.
In fact, here is a direct quote from OEC-
"In 2021, Saudi Arabia imported $7.43B in Refined Petroleum, becoming the 27th largest importer of Refined Petroleum in the world. At the same year, Refined Petroleum was the 2nd most imported product in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia imports Refined Petroleum primarily from: India ($2.17B), Greece ($1.09B), Russia ($892M), United Arab Emirates ($835M), and Egypt ($689M)."
Russia is one of the largest exporter of gasoline. I suppose the plan is to secure the availability for themselves while increasing gasoline prices in the rest of the world, but they'll foremost be a nuisance to their closest trading partners.
My country is not one. I also don't buy gasoline, so I really don't give a shit. For all I care, gasoline prices should increase, because the world as a whole has bigger issues with not buying fossil fuels than it has with economy or Russian domestic bullshit from a dying gangster billionaire.
I agree with you in sentiment about the need to divest from fossil fuels, but cannot agree with your "it doesn't affect me, personally, so let prices skyrocket" position.
Especially since gasoline price increases affect everyone except for nomadic tribes. Everything you buy is more than likely transported via fossil fuel based vehicles. That fuel price is added into the cost at some point. Higher gas prices means higher prices for everything.
It also gives an excuse for executives to raise prices more than the cost of fuel to pad their margins.
And I'm okay with it.
We should be paying the price for using products or byproducts that destroy the environment. Cleaning up after production should be part of the price of a product.
I don't disagree, but the problem is that the costs are always getting passed down to the people just trying to survive.
When fuel costs go up, prices in stores increase; we all pay for that. If you live in a rural area / food desert, you're paying more to drive to the store and then paying even more for groceries/supplies. All without any increase in wages. It also increases the cost just to get to/from work.
"Just buy an EV" isn't really an option when all your money is tied up just trying to survive.
Meanwhile, the companies / individuals doing the bulk of the polluting continue to make record profits. If/when fuel costs go down, prices remain high much longer (if they drop at all).
In effect, that just makes it even more expensive to be poor.
It has always been expensive to be poor. Good boots last longer and EVs are cheaper in the long run etc.
You're right that taxation hits the poor for a larger percentage of their disposable income, but that's only because we tax it wrong, and because taxes aren't funding the things they're supposed to.
If I pay a CO2 tax, I'd expect the amount to buy back the cost of returning my part of that CO2 to the ground, but that's not at all what it's doing.
Unlike value added tax, a CO2 tax ought to be based on what step of the supply chain your buying from. That would result in the manufacturers paying for their damage and the consumer for their own.
Anyway. The cost of "cradle to grave" has been a talking point for decades and yet we're still stuck on tax-subsidizing companies profiting off robbing the cradle, so I have completely given up hope for taxation policies to do this right.
I'm just taking my stance by minimizing my consumption and also not buying gasoline products. You do whatever you want.
Try to remember that everything you have in your life or purchase for daily use is conveniently close to your non-car lifestyle because of hydrocarbon powered transportation networks, which doesn't just eat the cost as a gesture of goodwill, the price of transportation is included in what you purchase.
I suppose the plan is to secure the availability for themselves while increasing gasoline prices in the rest of the world, but they’ll foremost be a nuisance to their closest trading partners.
From the article:
"The temporary export ban does not apply to the agreed volumes of supplies to the Eurasian Economic Union countries, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, RBC said."
So it looks like those are exempt.
I also don’t buy gasoline, so I really don’t give a shit. For all I care, gasoline prices should increase,
You may not buy gasoline, but you buy products and consume services fueled by lots of gasoline. However, I agree with you that we should be recognizing the total cost of gasoline, which includes its climate effects in its price to incentivize reducing its usage.
Russia is one of the largest exporter of gasoline.
At the risk of linking an un-cited web page, they look to be a distant 12th in gasoline.
https://www.indexmundi.com/energy/?product=gasoline&graph=exports&display=rank
The source is supposedly https://www.eia.gov/ but I can't find the original data there in any usable format.
Russia comes in a distant second for general refined petroleum (not just gasoline) according to https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/refined-petroleum-products-exports/country-comparison/
You don't understand even the most basic principles of economics.
I also don't buy gasoline, so I really don't give a shit. For all I care, gasoline prices should increase, because the world as a whole has bigger issues with not buying fossil fuels than it has with economy or Russian domestic bullshit from a dying gangster billionaire.
This may be the dumbest thing I'll read this month. I would try to explain why, but that would be an entirely pointless and exhaustive exercise. The short of it is that you do buy gasoline every fucking day and you love it.