Five Months Into the Iran War, China Is Saving Its Oil for the Next One

Five months into the Iran war, the largest supply shock in oil market history has been managed into a strange calm. Exxon just made $14.5 billion in a quarter, gas is over $4 a gallon, and Washington is quietly running its oil reserve the way the Federal Reserve runs interest rates. James Gutman is the co-author of The New Joule Order, and the newly launched Substack Arcs & Angles. This is his fifth time on Energy Empire and his darkest and sharpest appearance yet. In this episode: "Nobody actually puts crude oil into their car": the widest refining margins ever recorded, and why they, not the price of oil, set what you pay at the pump The Justice Department is investigating price gouging. What James would say under subpoena. "You can't print molecules": America's central bank of oil, and the catch when the vault runs low China cut imports by 5.5 million barrels a day without touching its strategic reserve Europe's rearmament bill runs as high as €14 trillion, and "the best friend for Team Green is the guy in the uniform" The question nobody asked in four previous episodes: what does James Gutman get wrong? Plus Ask Jigar: the solar super PAC that just beat a Trump endorsement, and the cleaner backup power hiding inside every hospital's budget. Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar S2G Investments: https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/report-illusion-of-crowds Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas James Gutman's Substack: https://jgutman.substack.com/ Our merch store: https://energy-empire.bonfire.com/collection/all-products