India’s Oil Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, made a rare point about physical economic conditions in an interview with oilprice.com: Global ‘demand” for oil has been destroyed by the effects of spreading wars. “There’s no supply shortage in the world:, Puri said. “The world has 104 million barrels of oil a day. It’s only that the supply routes are choked and freight charges and others are high, and that’s higher prices.” Global consumption of oil, he added, has dropped to just 94 million bpd, 13 million lower than before the attack on Iran began. And despite the Western media obsessing over exactly how many barrels are making through the Strait of Hormuz on any given day, what is determining oil consumption are the difficulties of shipping: freight rates for ocean shipping, already elevated last year due to the war in the Black Sea, are quadrupled since Feb. 28 when the attack on Iran began; cargo insurance is at highs never seen before, according to Puri.

Not discussed by the Indian Oil Minister is that while crude oil prices are recently “capped” by this destruction of demand, there is, by policies, a worldwide shortage of refinery capacity for oil products, now being worsened by attacks on refineries in Russia, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations.