OilWatch Intelligence · Compound-cascade simulator

The Doom Loop Engine

Continuous, saturating stress dynamics on a node graph, coupled to a depleting buffer (the drawable inventory above the allocation floor). The loop gain is now the actual Jacobian spectral radius of the dynamics — and it rises as the cushion thins, so tipping is reachable and bounded. A reasoning instrument: it propagates assumptions, it does not validate them.

TRIALS · ENGINE · continuous saturating + buffer feedback ENDPOINT · cushion breaches the allocation floor

Controls

Master variable · Ceasefire state

Scales each node's exogenous drive by its war-sensitivity. The structural edges stay fixed; only the spark rate changes.

Demand destruction · net-draw brake
0.60

The stabilising loop, now physical: high system stress destroys consumption, cutting the rate at which the buffer is drawn down. Slide to 0 to remove the brake and watch the cushion empty; raise it to find where the buffer holds above its floor.

Draw scale · stress → M bbl/d drawdown
6.0

⚠ This is the new bridge assumption B+D adds: how many million barrels/day of net buffer draw a fully-stressed system implies. It is a judgement, not a measurement — it is exposed here precisely so it can't hide.

Starting cushion · drawable billion bbl before allocation
0.80

The reservoir, in billion barrels. Allocation (the endpoint) fires when it hits zero. Default 0.8 = the amount realistically drawable before operational stress; slide up toward ~1.85 to include strategic/emergency stocks (see methods). Buffer feedback strength: 1.0× — how hard scarcity feeds back into the stress network (the doom-loop coupling).

Outcome

Scarcity loop gain
net-draw acceleration, full cushion → floor (>1 = self-reinforcing)
Net draw at the floor
≤ 0 → demand destruction holds the line · > 0 → cushion keeps emptying
Allocation reached
%
P(cushion breaches floor within horizon)
Time to allocation
mo
median, among trials that breach
Absorbed
Strained
Broken

Drawable cushion (billion bbl) over the horizon

month 0→ timehorizon

Median trajectory (solid) with the P10–P90 fan across stochastic trials. The red line is the allocation floor; where the fan touches it is where a major economy crosses from price rationing into physical allocation.

Sensitivity — what actually moves the outcome

Each input is swept ±50% of its current value (clamped to its range), holding the rest fixed; bars rank inputs by how many percentage points they move P(allocation). The long bars are the assumptions your conclusion hinges on — the ones worth defending; the short ones you can stop arguing about.

Nodes — equilibrium stress & drawdown weight

NodeSpark %Draw wtEquilibrium stress

Interaction edges — “if A is stressed, it raises B”