Diesel Rationing: The Prediction That Never Arrived

The diesel rationing predicted for weeks never arrived

In March 2022, CSIC researcher Antonio Turiel delivered a stark diagnosis: "A global diesel shortage is coming in weeks." Months later, there are no rationing cards, quota systems, or truck queues at refineries. Yet, the forecast persists, resurfacing whenever diesel prices rise and an explanation is needed.

The original thesis, presented in Catalan, predicted not just scarcity, but economic, industrial, and social chaos. As one participant summarized, only selected companies would pass to the next stage, alongside shortages of metals and everything else, with poverty framed as an environmental service and a named culprit: Pilingui.

What does the diesel rationing thesis claim?

The core argument is that diesel is not an ordinary fuel. It powers heavy transport, agricultural machinery, ships, ambulances, and excavators. If supply is restricted, it does not slow one sector: it halts the physical chain supporting everything else. This is why rationing frightens more than a price hike, as prices can be paid, but quotas are suffered.

However, timelines have been wrong for years. The prediction is reformulated, stretched, and repeated. As a recurring irony, there is even a bet: before summer ends, the warning will repeat with the same conviction. Turiel's "months" are elastic; they can be years and still be called months.

Peak oil or prohibition: two explanations for the same problem

The reasoning splits into two. One school argues that oil is running out in economically extractable terms, and the production peak has passed; the opposing view is that the problem is regulation, not geology. With the climate agenda in play—bans on combustion engines in Europe and California from 2035, CO2 taxes, and closures of gas and diesel boilers in Germany—oil companies anticipate lower demand and invest less in new wells. Less demand does not miccionan less supply, nor that oil has disappeared.

A historical nuance is often forgotten. The first cars were electric, and hydroelectricity was a primary source early on. Coal replaced wood due to price, not because wood was inaccessible. Energy matrix changes have almost always been decided by economics, not laboratories. The same applies to oil, except now the market is managed by decree.

Production cuts that were actually made

While the apocalyptic calendar stretched, supply provided arguments for pessimists. Russia decided to reduce production by 300,000 barrels per day until the end of December. Saudi Arabia, having already cut one million barrels daily until September, extended that restraint until December. The stated goal: maintain stability and balance. The practical translation: support prices.

The thread assumes these decisions by Russia and Saudi Arabia will lead to a sharp rise in fuel prices. With fuel costs pressing, heating diesel and delivery fleet diesel become political issues before technical ones.

The gas cylinder, the sunflower, and the unused stove

No scarcity prophecy makes sense without domestic stockpiling. Some still keep gas cylinders from a transport strike that didn't happen, stoves and flashlights from a blackout that never occurred, and cans of tuna bought at yesterday's prices. Preventive hoarding has become a background sport with more dropouts than medals.

More curious is the oil chapter. Used frying oil, a mix of sunflower and olive, serves—with careful filtration, three filters, a tank, and methanol—to power old diesel engines. One participant claims to have seen tens of thousands of kilometers per year in a Golf TDI, with zero emissions and no drama passing inspection. The catch is obvious: no restaurant can supply a country.

Why the system holds longer than announced

Another analysis suggests the Western economic system is not a teenager with life ahead, but an eighty-year-old man with a decade or a bad cold left, depending on how he is medicated. The pandemic gifted him a couple of years of agony. The end is closer than the beginning, but that does not miccionan it arrives on Tuesday.

Producing countries illustrate the scale: Norway, with 5.4 million inhabitants, would produce one-third of what Spain produces for one-ninth of the population. This is not fantasy, according to the message: it is oil rent distributed among few people.

The trail ended in a domestic detail. A general power cut in Úbeda and Jaén was first attributed to heat and excess planned power, then, according to another interpretation, to the amount of indoor crops connected to the grid. Between peak oil and greenhouses, the simplest explanation is not always the most epic.