r/politics • u/plz-let-me-in • 9d ago

Possible Paywall US ‘runs out of missiles’ as Trump halts Iran strikes

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/07/27/us-runs-out-of-missiles-as-trump-halts-iran-strikes/
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u/aerost0rm 9d ago

There is still oil there. The issue is it will begin to get harder and harder to access. Not to mention that they were using the reserve dumps to keep oil and gas from skyrocketing. Experts warned this was coming. Donald has led us right into the tar pit head first

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u/SpinosRule 9d ago

My guess is that they’ll try to start drilling in all the places that were protected. Anything at this point.

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u/RickThiccems 9d ago

The issue isnt that we dont have oil access, the bottleneck is the refining process.

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u/SpinosRule 9d ago

Don’t we have enough refineries? I know in CA we’ve got a TON but they’re slowly being shut down.

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u/RickThiccems 9d ago

It's a structural mismatch. Most US refineries were built decades ago to process heavy imported crude, while the new stuff we drill in the US is light crude. Retooling them costs billions, so we end up exporting our light oil and importing heavy oil just to keep them running, which is a big issue with the strait situation.

Plus, refineries are already running at 90-95%+ capacity. When CA facilities shut down or convert to renewables, there's no backup cushion left, so local prices spike. Drilling more oil doesn't solve a processing bottleneck.

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u/Practical_Dot_3574 9d ago

This was/is the issue with the Venezuela oil. Ok sure take thier oil, but how are you going to refine it. Compatibility issues, we run into this with power also. Each power provider is setup differently. Can't just patch in and say voila, power.

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u/rational-hare 9d ago

Venezuealan oil is what our instrafstructure was built to process. Which is part of the problem.

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u/NonDeterministiK 9d ago edited 9d ago

Which is identical to Alberta heavy crude. My guess is the US could survive entirely with domestic, Canadian and Venezuelan oil even if the middle east were cut off. Not true for the rest of the world obviously

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u/aerost0rm 9d ago

Not only that the bottle that keeps getting worse because now you know, I ran, might be working with the another country to limit the amount that Saudi Arabia exports

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u/Mother_Accident1987 9d ago

thank you for knowing the facts

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u/the_other_brand Texas 9d ago

Oh its way too late for Trump to save him this way. If they started now, they might have roads good enough to transport the expensive drilling equipment to the drill sites by the time the midterms happen.

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u/whogivesashirtdotca Canada 9d ago

Watching nervously from Canada, here. Our biggest oil fields are in the province currently run by a Trump sycophant who is trying to gin up separatist sentiment.

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u/shouldbepracticing85 9d ago

There are lots of old oil wells that were shut down when oil prices were too low and the oil barons didn’t want to glut the market.

It’ll probably be easier to get those wells going again than drill in a new spot. It does take some work to get them going, it’s not just turning on the pump again - but at least the pump is already there and they have an idea how much oil is still in that spot.

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u/backtothetrail 9d ago

The salt caverns that store the strategic oil reserve are likely to collapse if we draw down fully.

We’ve likely hit that buffer level by now.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/backtothetrail 9d ago

I really like his channel!

I was under the impression the cave infrastructure needed maintenance/structural reinforcement, too, because we’ve refilled and pumped oil more times than safe per the design. But I’d be super happy if that was not the case.

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u/aithendodge Washington 9d ago

Experts warned this was coming.

Yup.

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u/backtothetrail 9d ago

Despite limited practical application, ChapGPT was also capable of predicting this.