Most Americans aren’t thinking about sulfuric acid, phosphate fertilizer, Saudi oil pipelines or water levels on major shipping routes when they walk through the grocery store.
But perhaps they should be.
A remarkable collection of problems is developing across the systems that produce and transport the things Americans use every day. War is disrupting energy and fertilizer markets. Saudi oil infrastructure has been attacked. A major Midwestern refinery is offline. Fertilizer supplies have been squeezed. An exceptionally powerful El Niño is developing.
Any one of these problems can usually be absorbed.
The concern is what happens when several hit together—and when the consequences of today’s disruptions don’t fully appear until 2027.
That is the perfect storm now taking shape.
Why A Crisis Thousands Of Miles Away Can Reach Your Grocery Cart
Start with the Strait of Hormuz.
To the average American, it sounds like another distant Middle Eastern shipping lane. In reality, what happens there can eventually affect everything from the cost of filling a pickup truck to the price of bread.
The Strait normally carries enormous volumes of oil, natural gas, sulfur and fertilizer products. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization warned in May that disruptions there were already tightening fertilizer markets and increasing energy costs, with consequences that could extend into 2027.
Here’s the connection.
Modern farms require fertilizer. Producing and transporting fertilizer requires energy. Farmers require diesel to plant and harvest crops. Trucks, trains and ships then require fuel to move those crops. Food processors require energy. Finally, trucks require still more diesel to deliver food to supermarkets.
Increase the cost or reduce the availability of several of those inputs simultaneously and the consumer eventually pays for it.
But not immediately.
That delay may be one of the most important parts of this story.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Ticking
Unlike many manufactured products, agriculture can’t simply make up lost production next Tuesday.
Crops have planting windows. Fertilizer has application windows. Harvests happen on biological schedules.
The FAO has made precisely this point, warning that fertilizer arriving several weeks late can force farmers to use less of it or miss the application entirely. The result can be lower yields months later. Its warning specifically extends into 2027.
That creates an unsettling chain reaction:
Expensive or unavailable fertilizer today can mean less fertilizer applied to a field.
Less fertilizer can mean a smaller harvest.
A smaller harvest means tighter supplies.
Tighter supplies can mean higher prices for grain.
Higher grain prices eventually work their way into cereal, bread, meat, dairy and countless processed foods.
The original disruption may have happened half a world away months earlier.
The American family simply encounters the final result at checkout.
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Now Add An Energy Crisis
The same geopolitical turmoil affecting fertilizer is hitting energy.
Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline became especially important because it provides an alternative route for oil that otherwise depends on the Strait of Hormuz. Drone attacks have now damaged that infrastructure as well.
Saudi Aramco has canceled some European crude deliveries, forcing customers to seek replacement supplies elsewhere.
Saudi Arabia is finding alternative ways to move substantial amounts of crude, including transfers near Oman, so this is not the same thing as Saudi oil disappearing from the world market.
But that distinction illustrates the larger problem.
Every workaround consumes capacity somewhere else.
Europe searches for replacement oil. Tankers change routes. Freight costs rise. Buyers compete for alternative supplies. Refineries scramble for appropriate crude.
And eventually an overseas energy problem becomes an American price problem.
Then America’s Own Refineries Start Having Problems
Now bring the crisis home.
ExxonMobil’s massive Joliet refinery in Illinois was taken offline following a power outage, and floodwater later overwhelmed a pump. As of September 17, the 275,000-barrel-per-day facility remained offline. It normally produces approximately 11 million gallons of gasoline and diesel every day for the Midwest.
Think about the timing.
American farmers are harvesting crops using diesel-powered equipment while the global diesel market is already strained by war and attacks on energy infrastructure.
Now remove a major domestic refinery from the system.
It doesn’t mean America’s fuel supply suddenly disappears.
It means the cushion gets thinner.
And thin cushions become dangerous when the next problem arrives.
And Mother Nature May Be Preparing One
NOAA reported this week that El Niño is strengthening and now puts the probability of a very strong event this fall and winter above 90 percent.
