I looked into this because that depletion.org site makes the situation look scary as hell at first glance, and I think the honest answer is basically: *yes, this is a legitimate problem, but no, I wouldn't read it as "gas is about to be rationed and stay insanely expensive for years."*

First, the site isn't bullshit. The underlying inventory problem it's tracking is very real. The IEA's September 11 report says global observed oil inventories have fallen *507 million barrels since February*, more than *10 million barrels/day of Gulf production was still shut in* during August, and global refinery throughput was 4.2 million b/d lower than a year earlier. That's pretty freaking ugly.

However, there is a pretty important distinction between the site's data and the scary probability numbers it puts on the scenarios. The site itself says the probabilities are assigned using judgment, and it specifically warns that the model "wasn't developed by an energy analyst." So I'd regard it as a really useful stress dashboard and not interpret "50% corridor lapse" as if the IEA just announced a 50% probability of catastrophe.

What I found more concerning is that some actual energy experts are now describing basically the same physical problem, just without going nearly as far on the probabilities.

Columbia's Center on Global Energy Policy put out a discussion today estimating the world is currently short roughly *5 million barrels/day* of crude and petroleum products relative to demand. Their point was that the reason this didn't immediately turn into an enormous price spike months ago is because we had buffers everywhere - excess oil, oil sitting on tankers, strategic reserve releases, spare refinery capacity in some places, etc. We're now burning through those buffers. At some point price has to do the work.

And I think "price has to do the work" is the key distinction here.

When economists talk about *rationing through price*, they don't mean somebody is handing you a little card allowing you eight gallons of gas this week. They mean gasoline goes to $5, $6, whatever it takes until enough people decide not to take the road trip, companies consolidate deliveries, airlines cut marginal routes, factories use less diesel, weaker economies consume less, etc.

That's much more likely than literal nationwide American gasoline rationing.

The other thing that surprised me is that *diesel and refined products actually look scarier than gasoline*. This isn't just a shortage of crude. Gulf refining capacity is also disrupted, Russian products are constrained, and refinery margins have gone nuts. So you can theoretically have crude available somewhere on Earth and still have a shortage of the exact petroleum product somebody needs in the exact place they need it. The IEA specifically says the global refining system is stretched extremely tight.

That said, the EIA is still nowhere close to forecasting "welcome to Mad Max."

Their September 9 forecast has Brent averaging *$74/barrel in 2027* and U.S. regular gasoline averaging *$3.35/gallon*, with Middle Eastern production gradually recovering and getting back near pre-conflict levels around Q2 2027.

There is a catch there, though. Their forecast was actually completed September 3, so some of the latest deterioration isn't in it. That's probably why I wouldn't just shrug and say the whole thing is temporary either. The newer IEA report is substantially uglier. Still, even the IEA forecasts an enormous *8 million b/d rebound in global production in 2027*.

So if you're literally asking:

> should I trade my car in for an EV because I might not be able to buy gasoline?

I wouldn't.

If you were already going to replace the car anyway, though, I think this absolutely moves the needle towards an EV, especially if you can charge at home.

You're basically buying yourself some insurance against this entire category of bullshit. Strait gets closed? Iran attacks tankers? Saudi pipeline gets blown up? Russia stops exporting diesel? Oil hits $150? You care considerably less.

Wood Mackenzie actually published something on September 11 making essentially that broader argument - that persistent oil-price volatility could accelerate EV adoption because the advantage isn't merely a lower average fuel cost. You're also removing most of your exposure to oil-market shocks.

But if you've already got a perfectly good paid-off gasoline car, dumping it and buying a brand-new $40,000 EV solely because you're scared gasoline will be rationed seems like exactly the kind of panic trade where you somehow manage to lose more money avoiding the crisis than the crisis would have cost you.

Basically, my read is:

*Expensive and unusually volatile gasoline for a while? Very plausible.*

*Diesel/refined-product shortages getting seriously nasty? More plausible than I realized.*

*Localized shortages if things get worse? Definitely possible.*

*America running gasoline ration books for years? I couldn't find any serious institution treating that as the expected outcome.*

The part of this I'd actually keep watching isn't even the price of oil by itself. It's whether Hormuz tanker traffic recovers, whether the Saudi bypass pipeline comes back, whether Gulf production starts returning, and most importantly whether inventories finally stop falling.

If those things start improving, this probably looks like a brutal but temporary energy shock.

If another few months go by and we're still draining hundreds of millions of barrels out of inventories while the physical routes remain screwed up, then I think the depletion.org people start looking considerably less alarmist.

This is so appallingly LLM-generated it almost could read as satire. Is there some functionality here to report AI generated comments?