Trump’s Enormous C-Length Win over China

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Optimal Zero Sum Game Theory: The American Century

We must first begin this with a small exploration of Oil.

This is not a monolithic product in a grocery store shelf. And the definitions matter.

Let’s start with the current “Oil Production” numbers. This is stated and reported normally as “All Liquids.”

This is a very high number and it looks like the world is awash in oil. As of January 2026, the most recent available data for global oil production (including crude, NGLs, and other liquids) is from November 2025, estimated at 107.5 million barrels per day (MBPD).

But oil grades and types are not equal in terms of energy content or utility.

Length Matters

When we talk about “Oil,” we are using a lazy bucket term. In reality, a barrel of oil is a soup of thousands of different molecules. Each geographic barrel is a unique fingerprint.

“C-Length” refers to the number of Carbon atoms chained together in a single molecule.

This is the fundamental biophysics of the economy. The length of the carbon chain determines State of Matter (Gas vs. Liquid vs. Solid) and Energy Density (how much work it can do).

Short Chains (C1–C4): Gases. They float away.

Medium Chains (C5–C12): Thin Liquids (Gasoline). They evaporate quickly.

Long Chains (C13–C20): Oily Liquids (Diesel/Jet). The “Goldilocks” zone for heavy work.

Very Long Chains (C50+): Solids (Asphalt).

The US/Venezuela/China trade war is essentially a fight over C20+ chains.

1. The Gases: The “Atmospheric” End (C1 to C4)

Includes: Natural Gas and NGLs

These molecules are too light to be liquids at standard pressure/temperature. To move them, you have to freeze them (LNG) or pressurize them.

C1: Methane CH4

State: Gas.

Usage: Power plants, home heating, and Haber-Bosch Nitrogen fertilizer (Vital for the “Food” pillar).

C2: Ethane C2H6

State: Gas.

Usage: The backbone of Plastics. It is “cracked” into Ethylene to make PVC pipes, shrink wrap, and sterile medical packaging. US Shale produces a massive surplus of this.

C3 & C4: Propane & Butane C3 – C4

State: Liquified Gas (LPG).

Usage: Rural heating, drying crops (Agriculture), and blending into gasoline to help cars start in winter.

2. Light Distillates: The “Consumer” End (C5 to C12)

Includes: Naphtha and Gasoline

This is what US Shale mostly produces. It is “Light and Sweet.” It flows like water.

Naphtha (C5–C9):

Usage: The “Diluent” discussed earlier. Used to thin out heavy sludge so it flows in pipelines. Also a feedstock for plastics.

Gasoline (C7–C11):

Usage: Personal transport. Cars, motorcycles, light-duty delivery.

Economics: Essential for the consumer economy (driving to work/shops), but useless for heavy industry. A semi-truck or container ship cannot run on gasoline; it lacks the torque/density characteristics.

3. Middle Distillates: The “Industrial” End (C13 to C25)

Includes: Kerosene (Jet A) and Diesel

This is the most critical section for the survival of civilization. These molecules are dense enough to hold massive energy but liquid enough to be pumped.

Kerosene/Jet Fuel (C12–C15):

Usage: Aviation. There is no battery replacement for this. To fly trans-oceanic, you need C13 carbon chains.

Diesel/Heating Oil (C14–C20):

Usage: Torque. Agriculture (tractors), Logistics (trucks), Construction (excavators), and War (tanks).

The Crunch: This is the range that the world is short on. You get very little of this from US Shale (which is mostly C5–C10). You get a lot of this from Venezuelan/Russian oil.

4. Residuum: The “Infrastructure” End (C50 to C100+)

Includes: Bunker Fuel, Bitumen, Asphalt

These molecules are tangled monsters. They are solids or semi-solids.

Bunker Fuel (Heavy Fuel Oil):

Usage: Massive Container Ships. They boil this stuff to make it burn. It is dirty (high sulfur/metal) but energy-dense.

Bitumen/Asphalt (C50+):

Usage: Paving. The glue that holds rocks together to make roads. Also waterproofing for roofs.

The Orinoco Link: Venezuelan Orinoco oil is exceptionally rich in these C50+ chains.

The China Problem: Chinese Teapot refineries rely on importing this specific C-chain length to produce asphalt for China’s unending infrastructure buildout.

Why Refining Matters - The “Chopping” Problem

To run a modern economy, you need a specific ratio of products: roughly 40% Gasoline, 30% Diesel, 10% Jet, 20% Industrial/Asphalt. This matches the general demand pattern of the economy.

But nature never gives you that exact ratio in the ground.

Scenario A: Refining Light Oil (US Shale - Mostly C5-C10)

You have too much Gasoline/Naphtha.

To make Diesel (C16), you have to mathematically glue molecules together.

Biophysics: It is energetically difficult and expensive to “Oligomerize” (fuse) small chains into big ones. You cannot efficiently run an industrial economy on shale oil alone because you can’t make enough Diesel/Jet fuel without massive waste.

Scenario B: Refining Heavy Oil (Venezuelan Orinoco - Rich in C20-C100)

You have huge long chains.

The Coker: You heat them up and “Chop” them. A C50 chain can be snapped into three C16 chains (Diesel).

Biophysics: It is thermodynamically efficient to “Crack” (break) a long chain into specific smaller pieces. This is why US Coking Refineries are the “Golden Key.” They take the cheapest feedstock (C50+ sludge) and turn it into the most valuable product (C16 Diesel).

C-Length Summary

Gasoline (C8): Move Humans - Plentiful

Diesel (C16): Move Stuff - Scarce

Asphalt (C80): Build Roads - Geologically concentrated

These precise C-Length definitions show it is possible to have rising All-time High Liquids production, and yet still have a critical shortage. You lose time and energy either via the fusing or chopping process to attain the molecular length needed for the particular use case.

The Eastern Bloc Supply Chain

While the US controls the “Perfect Machine” (Gulf Coast Coking Refineries), the Eastern Bloc relies on a clumsy, distributed “Symbiotic Chain” where Russia/Iran acts as the crude extraction colony and China acts as the dirty processing lab.

By seizing Venezuelan Orinoco heavy oil, the US effectively secures the highest-value feedstock for its specialized machine, forcing China to run its “Teapot” refineries on inferior or politically volatile alternatives.

The Refining Gap: US Integration vs. Eastern Segmentation

The US possesses the “Holy Grail” of refining: Single-Site Deep Conversion.

US Advantage: A barrel of Orinoco sludge enters a Texas refinery and leaves as 80% High-Value Diesel/Jet and 20% solid Petcoke. It is processed in one location, efficiently.

Russian Flaw - The Mazut Glut: Russia cannot fully refine its own heavy barrels. Its refineries lack the depth of US “Coking” capacity.

• Russia is forced to export massive volumes of Mazut (M-100)—a cheap, low-value heavy fuel oil—because they can’t crack it into diesel domestically. They have to ship this half-refined trash to buyers who can finish the job.

China: “Teapot” refineries in Shandong have effectively become the “Trash Cans” for the Eastern Bloc. They import Russian Mazut and Venezuelan Bitumen blend to crack it into diesel and asphalt.

The Eastern Bloc relies on shipping half-refined residue between countries to achieve what Texas does inside a single fence line. That creates a massive Thermodynamic Friction (shipping fuel oil is heavy and dirty) that the US avoids.

Strategic Geographic Risk

Before, the US had to worry about illicit “Dark Fleet” tankers moving oil across the Caribbean, the Atlantic, AND the Indian Ocean. If the US activates the kill switch and forces US aligned producers in Venezuela to stop shipping bitumen to China, then it’s primary source becomes Iran. Seaborne shipped crude into China is 10.4MBPD. If seaborne is cut, 1.7MBPD pipelined (0.9MBPD Atasu-Alashankou + 0.8MBPD ESPO Skovorodino-Daqing ) remaining is DISASTROUS.

· The flow of oil is concentrated entirely in a predictable narrow ocean corridor.

· Almost all of China’s heavy crude inputs must now pass through the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca.

· The US Navy no longer has to play Whac-A-Mole globally. They can focus all their interdiction assets (satellite monitoring, naval blockades, insurance seizures) on the Iranian route. The Chinese energy artery becomes a single, highly vulnerable vein.

Precision Economic Warfare: Road Infrastructure

Iranian Oil (Soroosh/Nowruz) and Russian Mazut: Heavy, but optimized for fuels (Energy).

Venezuelan Oil (Merey 16) and Canadian Tar Sands: The global gold standard for high-yield Bitumen (Asphalt).

China consumes massive amounts of asphalt for its ceaseless road/infrastructure construction. Losing Venezuelan supply implies a structural shortage of road-paving material.

With Venezuela (Orinoco) gone to the US, and Canada (Tar Sands) logically aligned with the US (despite mercantile friction), China has only one source left for heavy, complex oil: Iran.

The Bottleneck: This forces China into a single-point dependency. If the US/Israel acts against Iranian export terminals (Kharg Island), the Eastern Bloc has minimal access to the heavy oil required for their specific refinery configurations.

·Russia can’t help: Russia produces “Urals” (Medium Sour), it’s true heavy oils are limited in production and export.

·Canada via the TMX pipeline supplies 200 000 bpd. This is the bpd spoken for CHINA crude. TMX total is 800 - 900 thousand bpd. And this pipeline is MAXED out. China can’t get any more. TMX schedules are spoken for. Other consumers have contractual claim.

You can’t pave a road with Iranian Soroosh/Russian Heavy efficiently; you get less asphalt and more waste.

How much worse?

2X LESS YIELD

The “Fuel Oil” Pivot

While Venezuelan Merey 16 is chemically “Perfect Asphalt,” Chinese Teapot refineries (specifically in Shandong) operate on razor-thin margins. They constantly toggle their output between Asphalt (Bitumen) and High-Sulfur Fuel Oil (HSFO) based on the “Crack Spread” (profit margin).

If the construction sector slows (Real Estate Crisis), the price of asphalt crashes. The refiner takes that same Bitumen Blend and instead of separating the asphalt bottoms for roads, they divert the bottoms to the Bunker Fuel pool for ships.

You are burning a complex, high-molecular-weight binder that nature took millions of years to create. But if ship fuel pays $600/ton and asphalt pays $450/ton, the Teapot refiner burns the road.

Can you pave roads with Light Crude?

Yes, but it is industrially idiotic.

Light Sweet Crude (e.g., WTI/Eagle Ford): Contains roughly 1–3% vacuum residue (asphalt).

You would have to refine nearly 60x-20x the volume of light crude to get the same asphalt tonnage as Venezuelan heavy.

You would be flooded with gasoline you can’t sell just to get the road binder.

Air Blowing -The “Fake Asphalt” Hack: You can take softer, lower-quality heavy oil (like Iranian/Saudi Medium) and blast it with hot air (Oxidation). This artificially ages and hardens the oil to mimic Venezuelan quality.

It is extremely energy-intensive (heating air to 260°C+) and creates a brittle asphalt that cracks in winter (lower fatigue life). It’s a “Bad Road” solution.

Demand vs Demand

The biggest thief of asphalt isn’t power generation; it is the Delayed Coker (specifically looking at the US strategy).

The US imports Venezuelan asphalt-rich oil and deliberately destroys the asphalt.

· They put the asphalt (bottoms) into a Coker at 900°F.

· The asphalt molecules crack into Diesel (High Value) and Petcoke (Solid Waste/Coal substitute).

· The US maximizes “Kinetic Energy” (Diesel/Jet) because it already has a built road network.

China needs the asphalt for roads. Coking it away (turning it into diesel) leaves them with a strategic paving shortage.

· China maximizes “Structural Material” (Asphalt) because it is still building/maintaining its grid.

The two powers have diametrically opposite chemical needs for the same barrel of Venezuelan sludge.

How much Bitumen does China import?

Official registers indicate in the region of 1.5MBPD. China imports sanctioned oil via shadow fleets and cargo transfers. This is a well known fact. Chemical analysis proves the cargoes are from sanctioned nations. Indonesia and Malaysia report approximate cargo unloading volumes. These 2 countries are primary hubs of oil mixing and recategorization to dodge official sanctions.

Everybody in South East Asia knows where the oil is coming from. China’s heads of state know. Officially, this oil doesn’t exist. Unofficially, everybody (including you) benefits from China’s economic output resulting from these imports.

This is split between

Venezuelan Heavy: 0.5MPBD

Iranian Medium-Heavy: 1.3MPBD

Canadian Tar Sands: 0.2MPBD

We mentioned earlier that Venezuelan and Canadian Heavy Bitumen is superior for asphalt production.

This is a fact of chemistry. You can verify this by searching up “vacuum residue” of various types of oils.

Venezuelan and Canadian Bitumen yield roughly 60% of their weight per barrel of oil as usable asphalt. Iranian and Russian heavy only generate 20%-30% vacuum residue.

China is estimated to produce 30M tons of asphalt petroleum binder per year. They love infrastructure spending.

That equates to 30M tons / 365 days = 82 000 tons per day. We round down to 80 000 tons.

Chinese industrial reports (OilChem, Mysteel, SunSirs) consistently report domestic “Petroleum Asphalt” production in the range of 30–33 million metric tons for 2024.

This refers to the Residuum coming out of the bottom of the distillation tower. It is liquid hydrocarbons. It has zero rocks in it.

As we covered, it is incredibly wasteful to use light crude or even med-heavy crude as feedstock for asphalt. The less processing steps needed to get to your use case, the higher financial and material return.

So we assume that under normal circumstances, the full 0.5MBPD of Venezuelan Heavy Oil is used for asphalt.

Weight of Merey 16 and the Weight of China’s Weakness

To convert “Barrels” (Volume) to “Tons” (Mass) for heavy oil, we cannot use the standard light oil conversion (7.33 bbl/ton). Heavy oil is denser.

· Crude Grade: Venezuelan Merey 16.

· Specific Gravity: 0.96. (Almost as heavy as water).

· 1 Barrel of Merey 16 = 0.152 Metric Tons.

The “Asphalt Ore” Inflow

Based on shadow fleet tracking of “Bitumen Blend” sourced from Venezuela:

· Daily Import: ~500,000 bpd x 0.152 metric tons

· 76 000 tons of Merey 16

The Yield: “Liquid Road”

This is the critical variable. Bitumen oil is unique because of its Vacuum Residue (Asphalt) content.

· Yield Factor: 60% (Conservative industry standard for Merey/Boscan run in Cokers).

· 0.6 * 76 0000 = 45 0000 tons

The Equivalence Check

· Total China Demand: ~80,000 Tons/day

· Venezuela Contribution: ~45,000 Tons/day

· Dependency Ratio: ~56%

The bitumen is likely the “Base Load” that creates the quality standard required for highways. Without it, the “Gap Filler” oils (Iran/Russian/Domestic) create asphalt that is too brittle or temperature-sensitive for high-speed rail beds or airport runways. Bitumen has specific material qualities that are unique and go beyond yield percentages.

To replace that specific tonnage using Middle Eastern oil (with lower asphalt yields of ~15–20%), China would have to process ~1.8 million barrels of extra crude per day, flooding their own market with unwanted gasoline and diesel just to scrape enough asphalt from the bottom of the barrel.

China would need to double current Iranian heavy oil imports. Iranian production is close to maxing out. It would take herculean levels of investment for supply doubling. Additionally, you begin to flood the market with double the byproducts of asphalt production making refinery margins worse.

Research explicitly titled: “Preparation of high-grade road asphalt from the mixture of Orinoco and Bohai crude oils.”

China’s domestic heavy oil (Bohai/Karamay) is heavy, but often “Waxy” or high in paraffin. This makes asphalt that is brittle in winter or flows in summer (poor “temperature susceptibility”).

They blend it with Venezuelan Merey 16 (Naphthenic/Resin-rich) to balance the chemistry. Venezuelan oil acts as the “Performance Additive.”

If you remove the Orinoco mixing agent, the vast reserves of Bohai oil suddenly generate inferior asphalt (AH-50 or lower grade). China can still pave roads, but the roads might crack in 2 years instead of 10.

Losing Venezuela doesn’t just lose volume; it degrades the quality of the domestic oil they do have.

CHECKMATE

Let’s review the state of the chessboard.

1. The US has secured ground presence in Venezuela.

2. The US has secured the sitting government leadership of Venezuela.

3. The US refinery and processing loop is perfectly designed for Orinoco Heavy Oil.

4. The US to Venezuela sea transit loop is physically shorter than Canadian Tar Sands.

5. The US to Venezuela sea transit loop is more efficient and faster than pipeline/rail of Canadian Tar Sands.

The US now has a vertically integrated loop for supplying itself and the entire world the critical medium and heavy crude oil products.

It can play the hand of favorites for those states willing to supplicate. This strengthens its position within the Western Bloc as the de facto Hegemon.

While the US controls the “Perfect Machine” (Gulf Coast Coking Refineries), the Eastern Bloc relies on a clumsy, distributed “Symbiotic Chain” where Russia/Iran acts as the crude extraction colony and China acts as the dirty processing lab.

The US also gains a geographic arterial strike advantage by only having to monitor the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, and Yellow Sea.

By seizing Venezuelan Orinoco heavy oil, the US also effectively secures the highest-value feedstock for its specialized machine, forcing China to run its “Teapot” refineries on inferior or politically volatile alternatives. This heavy oil sludge can be more easily cracked into lower forms as needed for desired usage.

Heavy oils give US optionality in refining. It is more efficient to “chop” that it is to “glue.”

The US will very likely install governance and corporate structure that is supplicating to its national needs. It can begin to squeeze the Eastern Bloc slowly by reducing exports of Merey 16. Or it can simply increase prices. China was able to buy this sanctioned oil at discount.

Now the US controls this oil supply. It’s categorization is “Clean.” So China pays fair market prices for continuing their infrastructure construction.

The same way that China uses REE controls.

We can make an estimation that China currently relies upon Venezuelan bitumen for roughly 50% of its asphalt production needs.

Depending on the mood of the US administration, this is about to get very expensive or outright disappear from China’s procurement.

Whether by design or coincidence, the US now has a very real wartime advantage against China.

It’s likely the US does not recognize this fully. They just wanted China OUT.

You probably just read an intelligence report that governments pay millions of dollars for to use in war gaming simulations.

“Amateurs talk tactics.

Professionals talk logistics.”

AFTERWORD

Thank you for reading this far.

Thank you new subscribers.

Thank you to Michael Burry who shared our Venezuelan Historical Primer.

When our research team decided to begin posting publicly 2025-12-08, we had no social media presence. We were tackling niche biophysical macroeconomics.

It is clear that detailed forensic engineering analysis is missing from the public space. The irony here is our least engineering heavy dispatch is the one shared by most people. C’est la vie.

This report was a deep numbers driven dive into the boring subject of macroeconomics and realpolitik.

We suggested reading the full series below to truly appreciate the nuances. You will also find the other dispatches not current events related to be possibly even more interesting than the Venezuelan Oil Saga. Be sure to explore the substack fully.

These are not singular pieces. This susbstack is a deliberate sequential logic chain. We are building up to “something.” The source document for this substack is 60 000 words long and growing. What you’re seeing published is not even the tip.

If you have only read the Historical Primer, you are missing out on Strategic Operational Intelligence.

Our next dispatch will cover Canada/Alberta.

Don’t miss out on [ SOI ]

The Venezuelan Oil Saga

Read in this order to get the full picture…

Might is Right - US Energy Imperialism

The Venezuelan Long Lose - The Entropic Slope and Zero Sum Games

Venezuelan Historical Primer: Friend, Foe, Vassal

Trump’s Enormous C-Length Win over China

Optimal Zero Sum Game Theory: The American Century