Bangladeshi bulker hit by missile in Ukraine port

According to Seatrade Maritime News, the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority reported that the 38,894 dwt, Banglar Samriddih, at anchor in the Olvia port had been struck by a Russian Navy rocket at 17-25hrs, local time, on March 02.

The port authority said in a Facebook post two tugs were sent to rescue the crew and preliminary reports indicated none of the 29 crew members had been injured. The vessels arrive in the port on February 23 and had been waiting to load.

The 2018 built vessel is owned and managed by Bangladesh Shipping Corp. According to security analysts Dryad Global it is the fourth commercial vessel to be struck by missiles since the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, including the Yasa Jupiter on February 24, and Namura Queen and Millennial Spirit on February 25.

The Ukrainian government said that the Ukrainian-flagged bulk carrier Princess Nicole was approached by Russian warships and made an illogical and sharp change of course while headed to Snake Island, also known as Zmiinyi Island.

The Ukrainian state border guard service also reported that a vessel, Athena, 22nm from Snake Island, reportedly sailing in Russian waters, had been commanded by approaching Russian to allow for inspection. The owner immediately informed the Ukrainian authorities.

UN-body has called an extraordinary session of its council address the impacts on shipping and seafarers of the situation in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

IMO said the virtual meeting on 10 and 11 March was being held the request of several council members.

Greece’s Shipping and Island Policy Minister, Ioannis Plakiotakis, revealed he personally contacted IMO Secretary general, Kitack Lim to discuss concerns about the safety of seafarers and vessels trapped in Ukraine.

Plakiotakis revealed the effort in a statement on his ministry's website, as reports started coming in that seafarers have been injured during attacks against vessels since Russia invaded Ukraine, on February 24. Since then, commercial ships about to load or unload cargo have become trapped in Ukrainian ports after military authorities shut down the terminals and stopped vessels from leaving.

France, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, is also leading the initiative in calling on IMO to take immediate measures to protect seafarers in the war-torn region. Besides Greece and France, other nations that have joined the call for an IMO meeting include Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Cyprus and Malta.

Plakiotakis noted that countries from outside the EU, such as Australia and the United States, are early supporters of the request.

Some 40 vessels are known to be trapped in the Ukraine with owners and crew facing harrowing times. For owners war insurance costs have soared and at least one seafarer has been killed and others injured in rocket attacks in the area.

Iran devising mechanism for free trade with Pakistan

Consul General of Iran Hamid Raza Ghomi said the Islamic Republic of Iran is devising a mechanism for free trade with Pakistan to strengthen economic relations between the two brotherly Islamic countries.

If the policy based on the mechanism is implemented, the set mutual trade target 5 billion dollars between the two countries could be achieved easily,” said Hamid Raza Ghomi while talking to Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) President Hasnain Khurshid at the Chamber’s House here on Friday.

SCCI’s other office-bearers and officials of the Iranian Consulate General, including Hossein Maliki, Imtiaz Ali, Dr Fazal Azeem were present on the occasion.

The Iranian diplomat said both countries enjoyed cordial relations owing to common culture and religion. He said the option of barter trade was available to cement the mutual relationship between Iran and Pakistan. The Iranian consul general suggested signing of Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) between the SCCI and Industries and Mines Ministry in Iran for joint initiatives to promote bilateral trade.

Earlier, the SCCI chief emphasized that joint efforts should be made to enlarge mutual trade and economic relations between Pakistan and Iran.

Hasnain Khurshid pointed out that it was getting difficult to achieve mutual trade targets for lack of proper banking channels between the two countries.

 An ambitious 5 billion dollars mutual trade target is being set between Pakistan and Iran, but in the last year, 504million dollars trade was carried out between the two countries, the SCCI chief pointed out.

However, he hoped the constitution mechanism for free trade would lead to the achievement of the afore-stated set Pak-Iran mutual trade target.

He said the exchange of business delegations, joint exhibitions, signing of agreements between chambers and taking benefits from each other’s experiences and launching of joint ventures would cement bilateral trade relations between Pakistan and Iran.

The SCCI chief stressed the need for early completion of the Pak-Iranian Gas pipeline project.

 Ghomi said a delegation led by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Mushtaq Ghani would soon visit Iran. He suggested to the SCCI chief to become part of the delegation as that would ensure the representation of the business community.

The Iranian diplomat agreed to the proposals made by the SCCI president and other participants. He said the SCCI should get practical and sign an agreement with the Mashhad Chamber of Iran, assuring his full assistance in this regard at every level.

 

Banning Russian oil and gas: out of the frying pan into the fire

The Biden administration’s willingness to engage with Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran to impose ban on Russian oil and gas is rattling some lawmakers who say the White House should not be cutting off foreign relations with one dictator in exchange for another to stabilize global energy markets.

Officials said no decision has been made about importing oil from Venezuela or Saudi Arabia, but the conversations underscore the difficult position. White House is trying to punish Russia amid concerns at home about soaring gas prices and the potential of further destabilizing worldwide energy markets.

Mark Green, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere subcommittee, on Monday called for the ban on Russian oil to extend to Iranian and Venezuelan supplies.

“The United States should not be directly or indirectly funding Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by purchasing their oil and gas," Green said. 

"At the same time, it would be outrageous to even consider buying oil from Iran or Venezuela. It's preposterous that the Biden administration is even considering reviving the Iran Nuclear Deal,” he said.

“It’s past time for us to take advantage of abundant natural resources of the United States and become energy independent—and it’s time to cut off tyranny and totalitarianism at the knees around the globe."

The White House has faced questions in recent days about whether, in exchange for banning energy imports from the Kremlin, it would be willing to deal with other governments that have been alleged to have committed crimes against humanity and have abysmal track records on human rights abuses.

“I think it’s important to take each of those engagements separately because there are a range of issues that are important in each of those relationships,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday, the day before President Biden announced he would ban Russian oil imports as further punishment for Russia invading Ukraine.

Psaki said two administration officials — Brett McGurk, coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, and Amos Hochstein, a State Department special envoy for energy affairs — traveled to Saudi Arabia last month to discuss a range of issues, including the war in Yemen and energy matters.

But relations with Saudi Arabia are a complicated matter given the kingdom’s alleged human rights abuses, particularly the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden vowed last year to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for Khashoggi’s murder after the US officials determined Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing.

Axios reported this week there were discussions about Biden visiting Saudi Arabia later this year, but Psaki said there are no current plans for the President to travel to the kingdom.

Psaki also acknowledged oil was a part of discussions among the US, allies and Iran as they seek to finalize a deal that would prevent Iran from being able to acquire a nuclear weapon. Should the sides reach a deal, sanctions could be lifted that would allow Iranian oil to flow into global markets, providing another source of supply to replace Russian energy.

Meanwhile, Biden administration officials visited Caracas, in a sign that the United States is at least willing to consider supplanting Russian energy purchases with those from other previously sanctioned countries.

The dialogue with officials from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's government could also be part of a diplomatic offensive to cut Russia off from its largest ally in the Western Hemisphere.

Still, the move rattled some of Biden's allies in Congress, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez.

“If the reports are true that the Biden administration is brokering the purchase of Venezuelan oil, I fear that it risks perpetuating a humanitarian crisis that has destabilized Latin America and the Caribbean for an entire generation," Menendez said in a statement.

"Nicolás Maduro is a cancer to our hemisphere and we should not breathe new life into his reign of torture and murder. As such, I would strongly oppose any action that fills the pockets of regime oligarchs with oil profits while Maduro continues to deprive Venezuelans of basic human rights, freedoms, and even food," added Menendez.

The White House has made clear it has other interests in talking with Venezuela, specifically about the release of imprisoned American citizens.

“There was a discussion that was had by members of the administration over the course of the last several days. Those discussions are also ongoing. And part of our focus is also on the health and welfare of detained US citizens — while a separate process, still that is part of our engagement with them,” Psaki said Monday. “So, at this point in time, I don’t have anything to predict. It’s ongoing.”

A full reinstatement of Maduro as a recognized leader in good standing with the United States would be a shocking turn of events.

Not only is Maduro's government not officially recognized as Venezuela's ruling body — the State Department in January refreshed its recognition of opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's legitimate leader — but Maduro himself is under indictment in the United States since 2020 as an alleged narco-terrorist.

The Venezuelan overture also quickly spilled over into Florida's 2022 Senate race, where GOP Sen. Marco Rubio is seeking reelection to a third term.

Rubio on Sunday was quick to criticize the move, saying Biden was seeking to "replace the oil we buy from one murderous dictator with oil from another murderous dictator."

Rubio also came out forcibly against purchasing Iranian oil, largely on similar grounds.

The leading Democrat in the primary race to challenge Rubio, Florida Val Demings, said she is "deeply skeptical of the new talks in Venezuela."

"We have multiple strong actions that we can take right now to bring down costs without enriching corrupt and murderous dictators like Nicolás Maduro," Demings said in a statement.

Still, the Maduro regime had embarked on a charm offensive even before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, recruiting a former Ecuadorian finance minister to woo Wall Street as an ally in a push to decrease or lift sanctions against Venezuela.

The pitch before the invasion was essentially that bondholders would recover their investments if they successfully lobbied Washington to lift sanctions. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has added geopolitical and inflation-busting benefits to the mix.

It's unclear whether Venezuela would be able to increase oil production quickly enough to supplant Russia's isolation from the global energy market — Venezuelan oil production dipped from 3 million barrels a day in the 1990s to about a tenth of that following US oil sanctions in 2019.

While production has more than doubled since then, it could still take months or years for Venezuelan crude production to make a dent in domestic US gas prices.

Both Republicans and Democrats are critical of what they call the Biden administration's knee-jerk reaction to seek increased oil production abroad rather than easing conditions to increase domestic production, which would also take time to make a difference when it comes to prices at the pump.

“I find it disturbing that the Biden administration is negotiating with one tyrannical dictator while sanctioning another one. The U.S. is more than capable of producing its own energy. We need to stop relying on adversaries for energy we can produce here at home,” Vicente Gonzalez, a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, told The Hill.

Ukraine NATO membership in not on agenda, says German Chancellor

Ukraine’s membership is not on The North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO’s agenda, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Friday. “I also made it clear in Moscow and in my visit that this option, Ukraine’s membership of NATO, is not on the table and will not take place,” he said during an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF.

“I said publicly that we all know that Ukraine’s NATO membership is not on the alliance’s agenda today,” he added. “That was understood by the American President that was also understood by the French President.”

Scholz said he shares Russian President Vladimir Putin’s security concern and clarified to Putin that Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO.

“The Russians were worried about the control issue of their security. Putin was worried that NATO has a military setup and rockets in Ukraine targeting Russian territory. That is why we tried to make it clear that this will not occur,” he elaborated.

Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership appeared to be one of the core disputes that caused the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

In February 2019, the then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a constitutional amendment committing the country to becoming a member of NATO and the European Union after the parliament passed the bill.

Poroshenko told the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine days after he signed the amendment that joining NATO was a guarantee of security for Ukraine.

On the Russian side, Putin says Russia needs to lay down ‘red lines’ to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO saying that Ukraine’s growing ties with the alliance could make it a launchpad for NATO missiles targeted at Russia.

The United States and other Ukraine alliances have tried to avoid war by deescalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

However, the Kremlin criticized the United States and NATO for failing to address the fundamental security concerns of Moscow, demanding that NATO stop its eastward expansion and that strike weapons not be deployed near Russia’s borders.

Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 after the efforts to deter war failed.

Russian armed forces made rapid progress and had reportedly encircled several Ukrainian cities or facilities in the first week.

They also reportedly gained control of Kherson, a port city in Ukraine’s south.

However, the Russian forces were met with strong resistance from the Ukrainian military, especially on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

The resistance from Ukrainian forces and Russia’s own logistical difficulties has slowed down the Russian military’s speed of the advance, the UK’s Ministry of Defense said.

A United Nations official said around 1.2 million people have fled Ukraine as the war entered its ninth day. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi confirmed the staggering figure in a tweet on March 4.

Grandi said on Thursday that in his four decades of work in refugee emergencies, he had rarely seen an exodus as rapid as the one in Ukraine.

“Hour by hour, minute by minute, more people are fleeing the terrifying reality of violence. Countless have been displaced inside the country,” he said in a statement.

The UN also said that, as of March 3, they had recorded 1,006 civilian casualties in the context of Russia’s military action against Ukraine, mostly caused by shelling and airstrikes.

The agency said that 331 civilian deaths have been recorded, including 19 children, while 675 have been injured, including 31 children. The UN says, however, that the “real toll is much higher.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that, to date, 9,200 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war. Russian authorities have reported that 498 of its service members have been killed.

 

US Senator Lindsey Graham calls for the assassination of Russian President Putin

Reportedly, a senior US Senator, Lindsey Graham has called for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin. This has sparked widespread condemnation and reflects another example of Washington’s failure to adhere to the rules of law within the international community. 

The White House tried to distance itself from the remarks made by the South Carolina Senator saying they do not reflect the position of the United States. 

Some congress members did come out and criticized Lindsey Graham’s remarks. The problem is that his statements represent the US foreign policy stance. 

Graham, who is widely viewed as an influential Senator within the Republican Party on military and foreign-policy matters, made public what many senators and the US foreign policymakers think privately. 

Speaking to the US media, Graham called for a hit job on a sovereign independent head of state saying "I'm hoping someone in Russia will understand ... you need to take this guy out back any means possible.”

The hawkish Senator carried on with his threatening rhetoric, telling the US media that Russians must rise up and take Putin down.

He also carried on his intimidating statements on social media platforms, making similar calls against the Russian President.

The Senator’s statements also reflect the inability of the United States to think, act and behave rationally in times of crisis. 

As the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov put it “Unfortunately, in such an extremely tense atmosphere, and even more so in countries such as the United States, a hysterical Russophobic fit is being whipped up. These days, not everyone manages to maintain sobriety, I would even say sanity, and many lose their mind.”

The Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, denounced Graham’s remarks as unacceptable and outrageous, saying the degree of Russophobia and hatred in the US towards Russia was off the charts. 

In a statement posted on the embassy’s social media platforms, Antonov said “It is impossible to believe that a senator of a country that promotes its moral values as a guiding star for all mankind could afford to call for terrorism as a way to achieve Washington’s goals in the international arena.”

Washington’s assassination of anti-imperialist figures and independent leaders hasn’t been off the US foreign policy agenda. 

In the 1960s, the US government put together several attempts and plans to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro using various methods such as exploding cigars, murderous mobsters, an exploding seashell, and the infamous poison pen.

Also in the 1960s, many political figures inside the US itself were assassinated, including one of history’s most iconic black civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King as well as another very iconic black civil rights leader Malcom X. 

After the murder of former US President John F. Kennedy which shocked America, successive President’s claimed enough was enough and signed executive orders prohibiting the use of assassinations as a tactic of the US operatives.

Unfortunately, American executive orders are not worth the paper they are written on. 

There are also terrorist leaders who worked hand in hand with Washington and were later assassinated by US Special Forces instead of being captured and put on trial. Critics argue taking these individuals for instance, Osama Bin Laden, to an independent International tribunal would have exposed the level of coordination with leaders of the now many terror groups. 

Over the years, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, another sovereign head of state survived multiple American-backed attempts on his life. 
 
As lately as January 2020, the US carried out the assassination of Iran’s top military commander General Qassem Soleimani and the highest-ranking military commander in Iraq Abu Mehdi al-Muhandis with drone strikes in the vicinity of Baghdad International Airport under the direct order of former President Donald Trump.

The United Nations declared the US drone strikes against the late Iranian anti-terror war hero as unlawful and an arbitrary killing that violated the UN charter.

Again, that hasn’t stopped the US senators such as Lindsey Graham from adding fuel to the fire in Ukraine by openly calling for the killing of President Putin. 

Some congress members have hit back at the Republican Senator which critics say is aimed at distancing the US from any involvement in the Ukraine conflict, which the US and its NATO partners sparked in the first place. 

Representative IIhan Omar wrote, “I really wish our members of Congress would cool it and regulate their remarks.”

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said, “This is irresponsible, dangerous and unhinged.”

Representative Matt Gaetz wrote, “When has Sen. Graham encouraging regime change ever ended badly?”

Even Texas Senator Ted Cruz noted, “This is an exceptionally bad idea, use massive economic sanctions; boycott Russian oil and gas; provide military aid so the Ukrainians can defend themselves.”

The problem with Cruz’s thought process is that Ukraine has lashed out at the US-led NATO alliance for abandoning Kyiv. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has chastised the bloc for its refusal to establish a no-fly zone over the country amid the ongoing Russian offensive that hit Ukraine last week.

Zelensky, in a videotaped address, told the United States and its NATO allies that people will die because of you in the country.

He said, “NATO knowingly approved the decision not to close the skies over Ukraine. We believe that the NATO countries themselves have created a narrative that the alleged closing of the sky over Ukraine will provoke direct Russian aggression against NATO”.

He also slammed the lack of aid from the alliance, saying that it has only managed to authorize a small fuel delivery for the country. While Ukraine has been recognized as a special partner of the alliance, NATO has repeatedly reminded the Ukrainian President that it would not go into a war with Russia for the sake of his country.

Zelensky said “All that the NATO alliance could do today was to allocate some 50 tons of diesel fuel for Ukraine through its procurement system.”

He also lashed out at the latest NATO meeting saying "today there was a NATO summit, a weak summit, a confused summit, a summit where it was clear that not everyone considers the battle for Europe's freedom to be the number one goal," Zelensky said

A similar statement has been made by the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, who said the ongoing conflict has exposed NATO’s weakness.

Speaking to Ukrainian media, Kuleba said “before the war, Ukrainian people believed that NATO was strong, while the EU was weak and indecisive. And after the war began, the people saw that the opposite was true.”

The top Ukrainian diplomat also claims that the European Union gave us a candidate status and prospects of membership, while NATO could not decide on anything. 

The reality is that Ukraine has not been given an EU candidate status, because a country needs to live up to certain conditions before attaining such a status.

The EU Parliament has only passed a non-binding resolution that states it would welcome Kyiv’s membership application. 

It’s actually not quite a difficult process to both enter or leaves the EU as Turkey and Britain found out. 

The Belarusian President, meanwhile, pointed out that the US and its Western allies want to prolong the conflict.

Alexander Lukashenko said, “All of NATO & EUmembers keep shouting about ending war in Ukraine. In public, but what they need there is war, the more of it, the better.

Lukashenko also said that the West is not allowing Ukraine to make a move to end the conflict.

 

Russia and China getting ready to create New World Order

Fifty years after Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong’s historic 1972 handshake, the geopolitical world order is once again reshaping. The world is now watching a growing alliance between Beijing and Moscow.

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in early February this year on the opening day of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The meeting could have granted an opportunity for Xi to urge Putin to pursue diplomacy with Ukraine and de-escalate tensions between the two countries. Instead, the Chinese regime appeared to have looked the other way as Russia planned its advances on its neighbor.

Many have described the February 04 meeting as a show of solidarity between the two regimes. The occasion was marked by a lengthy joint statement in which the two countries announced a no limits partnership, in which there were no forbidden areas of cooperation.

The 5,000-word communiqué also expressed opposition to the further enlargement of NATO and called on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries … and to exercise a fair and objective attitude toward the peaceful development of other States.

Such a detailed statement clearly defined the nature of China and Russia’s emerging relationship, retired Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis told The Epoch Times. It is one wherein Xi and Putin are bent on stifling the West, dismantling NATO, and creating a new world order, he said.

Less than three weeks after the Putin-Xi meeting, Russia began its assault on Ukraine. Maginnis described the communique as a gentlemen’s agreement behind what many would consider very much an alliance. Putin, he added, is hopeful this newly forged alliance will help carry Russia through its invasion.

Behind the scenes, Maginnis suspects that the Xi-Putin rendezvous granted the “geopolitical back up and financial assurances” to Russia to soften the economic blow from Western sanctions. That the Chinese regime has not criticized Moscow for its attack on Ukraine could be a sign of Beijing’s silent support, he added.

“Xi is very likely encouraged by what the West is doing—or more appropriately, not doing,” Maginnis said. Russia has faced universal condemnation from the West, while receiving aid from several countries. Sanctions are also coming in from many directions in an effort to slow the Russian regime’s unprovoked assault.

But what’s most important to the Chinese regime is the fact that the United States is not sending troops to Ukraine, he noted.

In light of the raft of Western sanctions, Maginnis said he suspects “Xi will help launder whatever finances that Putin, the oligarchs, and the Russian government at large needs to keep moving forward.”

As the conflict in Ukraine continues to escalate and the Chinese regime continues its ambitions to seize Taiwan, he said that the United States and NATO have found themselves in a new cold war.

“Xi is seeking a new world order, as evidenced by many of his writings and speeches,” Maginnis said. This new world order, he added, is one that is “far more accepting of an authoritarian regime, rather than the liberal values that formulated the world order post-World War II.”

On the heels of a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and its handling of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, some countries are starting to consider the United States a second-rate world power, according to Maginnis. Some of these countries may soon be asking “Who do we want to align ourselves with?” and “Who’s going to really run things in the future?”

Maginnis didn’t consider Putin’s behavior to be “crazy” for invading Ukraine, but said that “Putin is pragmatic, not afraid of pulling the trigger if it’s going to benefit him in the long-term.”

With Russia and China working alongside each other to usurp the West, he said, “Taiwan should be greatly concerned, because it’s true of Xi as well; he would pull the same trigger when he feels like it will benefit him the most.”

Beijing is watching what the United States is doing in Ukraine. One thing to watch, Maginnis said, is whether or not the United States will transport or relocate critical assets out of the Pacific arena to Europe. Secondly, he added that Xi is also watching the effects of the sanctions on Russia’s ability to take on Ukraine.

America’s military presence in the Pacific, combined with the impact of crushing economic sanctions, remains the primary concerns of the Chinese regime as it eyes Taiwan, he said.

Can United States afford to ban export of oil and gas from Russia?

The United States may survive cutting off Russian oil and gas imports over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, but it would almost certainly strike a massive financial toll.

Political support for banning Russian energy imports is growing in both parties, and the White House said the topic is under discussion — though it said President Joe Biden had not made a decision.  

Oil prices are already skyrocketing, and the Brent crude oil international benchmark hit a 13-year high of US$139 per barrel on fears of a ban after Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was engaging in an active discussion about the possibility.

Russia is one of the world’s largest oil producers, with a 12% global market share, according to an analysis by JPMorgan.

Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia was exporting about 6.5 million barrels daily, of which 4.3 million barrels per day were going to Europe and the United States. The US was importing about 600,000 to 800,000 barrels from Russia daily — or about 8% of the country’s supply of crude oil and petroleum products.

Cutting off that spigot will lead to higher prices unless more supply comes from somewhere.

It’s possible that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could decide to increase supply, but there has been no indication from such countries that they will produce and export more oil to replace Russia’s, the JPMorgan analysis warned.

“The Biden team is already calling Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and others, I imagine,” said Morgan Bazilian, Director of the Colorado-based Payne Institute for Public Policy. “But their diplomatic leverage on those countries is limited, and they have shown very little appetite to be influenced by Biden and the US.”

Relations between Saudi Arabia and the Biden administration are decidedly chilled following Democratic criticism of the killing of former Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who is widely believed to have been murdered by Saudi agents.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is the day-to-day ruler of Saudi Arabia, also recently told The Atlantic in an interview, “I do not care whether Biden misunderstood things about him.”

Senior US officials also took a rare trip to Venezuela, another OPEC member, this weekend for talks about potentially easing sanctions on oil exports from that country.

Another option to take the pressure off a ban on Russian oil would be to increase US shale production, although that growth would be limited by the necessary labor and infrastructure demands, according to the JPMorgan analysis.

It is more expensive to produce oil from shale fields in West Texas than Saudi Arabia. The higher international prices could lead to increased production in the US given the economics, though relief at the pump would be a bigger question.

“Saudi Arabia is known for having the cheapest, sweetest crude oil — it takes the least amount of additional refining, very cheap to process, and it's very cheap to get out of the ground,” Gernot Wagner, a climate economist and visiting professor at Columbia Business School, told The Hill. “West Texas crude is a lot harder to get out of the ground.”

It costs less than US$10 per barrel to extract Saudi Arabian oil, whereas digging up West Texas crude costs about US$70 per barrel, according to Wagner.

“So it only really pays to get it out of the ground if the oil price is well above those US$70,” he said.

Bazilian warned that a ramp-up in domestic production would face a variety of hurdles, such as the time it takes to start pumping, financial restrictions imposed by Wall Street and an insufficient workforce.

Another wild card that could help fill the gaping hole left by Russia poses its own set of complications, Iran.

If the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal is restored, it could lead to the waiving of US sanctions, enabling Tehran to ramp up its crude supplies by one million barrels per day over the next two months, the JPMorgan analysis stated.

Bazilian described as deeply flawed the notion that cutting off Russian oil could lead to energy independence.

What would be more sensible, he argued, would be to focus more on energy security — a mix of supply, demand, markets and institutions — while finding a way to entice the US industry in the short to medium term.

“That will be tough for an administration who has climate change as a top tier priority,” Bazilian said. “Of course, that priority is not top tier today.”

Echoing these sentiments, Wagner likened a pivot away from Russian oil sources to a switch from a fast-food hamburger to a highly caloric vegan burger.

“It still produces CO2 emissions,” Wagner said. “It's still going to give you a heart attack. It might even be worse for you right at the end of the day because we don't really know what eating vegan burger does to you.”

And that sense of uncertainty is dominating global energy markets right now — in large part, Wagner explained, because we don’t know what Putin’s going to do next. But from a purely economic perspective, he said, there are certain advantages to cutting off Russian oil altogether.

“You basically rip off the risk premium,” Wagner added. “Suddenly, there's no uncertainty about what Russia will do next because it doesn't matter.”