Mining Sector Ideas

[bigworld]

From Bob Rinear today: March 22, 2026
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Financial Intelligence Report

The Newsletter for people willing to take control of their financial future

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Greetings Friends!
This is today's issue of the Financial Intelligence Report

Contributing Editors: Bob Rinear, Chuck and the Crew!

Wall Street Lunacy donated by Jerome Powell, and Central Bankers the world over! Who else can print money and buy stocks?!

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Part 1: General Commentary
Part 2: Market Commentary



Seriously

This is going to be a tough one to write and for you to read.

Before I get started, I want to flat out ask you to hit the donation link below. I seriously believe that the next 6 months are going to be one of the most important times in your life. I want to be here every week, giving you news and opinions that will help you. But sending this letter gets more expensive every year.

You know the drill. There's no ads in here. I don't take advertiser money. So, sending this to thousands, costs a fortune out of pocket. Without donor help, it would already be gone. Some think that because they can send an email for "free" that I can send for free. No, sorry. To send thousands of emails at the same time requires a bulk mailer. Constant contact is about the best. But look at their rates. It's hundreds of dollars per month.

So, if you get value out of my letters...hit the donate button. But more importantly hit the link to keep me sending over the next 6-10 months, because a storm is coming.

This is one of those unique times, where I want to sound the alarm without sounding alarming.

Right now, everything is normal. Your life today is no different than on any other day. January 17th or February 9th or today are all the same. You get up, and you do normal things. The stores are all open and stocked. While more expensive, food and gas are plentiful.

Yeah, there's a war. It's way way over there, so no problems here. And that's what most people will think. Until there is problems here and then all hell breaks loose.

People are being lulled into believing that because we have oil and natgas here in the states, that "far away" place won't concern us much. In fact you're told that by talking heads and politicians daily. But, are they right? In my opinion, NO.

In the immediate, meaning now, it's the Gulf nations that are taking the big hits. People are leaving in droves. The playground of the rich and famous are seeing missiles streak across the sky. They didn't go there for that. The peasant class that actually runs their infrastructure are also fleeing. There's multiple more of them, than the rich.

Energy plants, fuel depots, pipelines have all been hit. Parts of Europe and Asia are already feeling the pain. While we look at the big board and see crude trading at 98 bucks, in the real world, physical oil is trading hands at 140 and more. Prices are going up. Many airlines have jacked their ticket prices aggressively.

You all know about the strait of Hormuz. 20% of the worlds oil goes through that narrow channel every day. Until now. The world can NOT survive a 20% loss of supply, and run like nothing's changed. They can't and it's going to become ever more evident in the semi near future.

But there's a REALLY big reason that for the last 6 years especially, I've pleaded with you, begged you, to buy a bunch of freeze dried, and canned food. I've tried to show you good ways to grow food. Because in my opinion, food is going to be non existent for an awful lot of people in this world.

Yes I said non existent. Why? Iran has hit not just oil facilities, they've hit natural gas facilities. The initial attack on Qatar's facilities has taken around 4% of the world's total global liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports offline. Industry experts indicate repairs could take three to five years. Well yeah, if nothing else gets hit!

In a global system already stretched razor-thin, this is not a pinch; it is a body blow. The stated threat by Iran is to destroy all 14 of Qatar's LNG 'trains.' If executed, that would remove a foundational pillar of global energy trade for a decade or more, triggering not a recession but a 10-15 year energy famine. This is the math of industrial collapse.

But Bob, we have natural gas here! Yep. But do you know what we don't have here? Fertilizer plants. Trust me on this one, with big agriculture, no fertilizer means no food. Through the Haber-Bosch process, natural gas is combined with atmospheric nitrogen to create ammonia, the backbone of nitrogen-based fertilizers.

Most people simply aren't aware of just how important the Gulf nations are in providing fertilizer stock. So, I'm going to show you.

The strait handles roughly one-third of all global seaborne fertilizer trade, including about 16 million tonnes of key products (urea, DAP, MAP, and others) originating from the Persian Gulf region. But this is not just a shipping issue folks: some Gulf plants have gone offline due to energy/LNG disruptions and strikes, while knock-on effects (e.g., lost Qatari gas) have forced shutdowns elsewhere.

Urea (the dominant nitrogen fertilizer, 50–60% of global nitrogen use) 45–50% of global urea exports originate from countries west of the strait (Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, plus Egypt) and must transit through that little channel.

Ammonia (key nitrogen intermediate) 23–30% of global ammonia exports are exposed.

Sulfur (critical input for phosphate fertilizers) The Gulf accounts for 44–50% of global sulfur supply/exports (a byproduct of oil/gas). Half of global sulfur exports typically move through the strait, directly hitting sulfuric acid production used for phosphates.

Phosphates (DAP/MAP)20% of global DAP exports and 10% of MAP exports are linked to the region (Saudi Arabia is a top exporter). Indirect sulfur shortages compound this, affecting phosphate production worldwide. Gulf countries also produce 20% of global phosphate fertilizers.

Then we've got the secondary/global effects: Plants in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Egypt have shut down due to lost Qatari/Israeli gas supplies. Nearly 1 million metric tons of fertilizer cargo are physically stranded in the Gulf.


So, the net effect of all this is equivalent to removing roughly one-third of globally traded fertilizer production/supply from the market in the short term, with nitrogen fertilizers hit hardest at 40–50% of trade volume. This has already driven urea prices up 25–35%+ in weeks, with further rises expected. Phosphate production faces cascading risks from sulfur shortages. Recovery depends on how long the closure lasts — restarting plants and shipping could take many weeks even if the strait reopens.

You cannot take 33% of the worlds fertilizer off the market and expect no problems in Agriculture. So, it's not just energy that's going to bother most of the world, food production is going to drop like the proverbial rock.

People only think about the gulf nations in terms of oil. But no, it's not just oil. It's natural gas, LNG, Sulphur, plastics, rubber, etc.

Obviously the one that bugs me the most is fertilizer/food. Farming has become extremely efficient, with fewer farms feeding ever more people. They're about to get the news that this planting season, either it will cost them 50% more, or worse, they can't get any. This is not a healthy situation folks.

Last year I pushed for you all to get some solar power, store up some food, grow some food. I pushed because I was convinced that Russia and NATO would be at war by this summer. Well so far, I got the war right, but the wrong players.

But the bottom line is the same. This "over there" war is coming to bite all of us in the ass. We will do better than Europe, they're going to be in truly dire straits. But we're going to experience a level of pain too. And Oh, by the way...the war is still raging. What if it expands? What if more nations join? Yemen has said it's about to join Iran and close the strait to the Red Sea. This is terrible news.

So, it's my opinion, we've got some issues coming at us folks. As hard as it is to say, true "famine" is not just fear porn. It's going to be a reality in many areas. How many are prepared for it? NOT MANY.