Could Belarus Run Out Of Gasoline?

It all started the same way with the potatoes last year, too.

Yesterday, the TV decided to report that there are no gasoline problems in Belarus. That no one is causing any panic-buying lines here. That there is

enough gasoline, there has been enough, and there will continue to be enough. So, the most important thing is, there’s no need to stockpile gas. Because if everyone starts stockpiling, then there won’t be enough gas to go around.

Anyway, you and I knew even without TV that there are no gas problems in Belarus. No one seems to have complained about any gasoline problems in Belarus so far. But after they started reassuring everyone on every TV channel at once, I started to feel, you know, a little anxious about the gasoline.

Especially since some TV channels decided to reassure people about gasoline in Russia at the same time. Apparently, to save themselves the trouble of doing it twice. They explained that there is gasoline in Russia and, on the contrary, there’s no gasoline shortage. That “it’s all being artificially hyped up” by enemy fake news.

And TV stations wouldn’t reassure people for no reason. It started the same way with potatoes last year. At first, the TV stations reassured everyone that there would be enough potatoes for everyone. They showed that we had potatoes galore. They said we simply didn’t know what to do with all these potatoes. And then the potatoes just disappeared somewhere.

So I started thinking—maybe they know something on TV about gasoline that you and I aren’t aware of yet? Maybe gasoline is the new potatoes?

Although, if the TV hadn’t started reassuring us, I wouldn’t even be worried about Belarusian gasoline. Because we have plenty of gasoline, and if you think about it logically, it doesn’t seem like it could run out. But then again, who would have thought that Belarus could run out of potatoes? And yet it did.

In the 25 days of June, Belarus sold 140,000 metric tons of gasoline to Russia. Given summer demand, this isn’t the maximum yet, but it’s already close to the limit of what Belarus can sell to Russia without compromising its own fuel security. In other words, selling this much—or even a little more—wouldn’t compromise security at all. There’s enough gasoline for everyone.

But there’s a catch. When certain people smell a quick buck, they lose their ability to think rationally. Because those quick bucks they can make start to exert pressure on decision-makers. And right now, you can make a profit on gasoline that potatoes could never even dream of.

So perhaps it’s no coincidence that TV stations have started saying that there are no problems with gasoline in Belarus—there never were, and there never will be. Maybe they’re just fulfilling their social function of keeping the public informed?

And it’s a good thing that the audience of Belarusian TV doesn’t read. Because if the public saw on TV that there are no gasoline problems in Belarus, those problems would definitely start. That’s just the magical nature of Belarusian TV.

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