High prices at the pump

The real reason for high prices at the pump is “crisis opportunity exploitation” by American oil companies

These companies make more money per barrel when refining margins and operating leverage expand during a crisis, such as the one created by the American military strikes in an area where, 20% of the world’s oil transits through, against an opponent, which has no reservations about affecting oil markets and whose survival strategy, depends on the economic and political pressures generated by their retaliatory capabilities against that commodity.

Yemen’s Houthis militants have taken the port of Mokha and the island of Mayyun, both of which, provides the IRGC backed Houthis with bases to attack shipping in the Bab-Al-Mandan Strait, the Western choke point for oil shipments to Europe through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. All of this has obviously afflicted the world’s oil market but none of that oil is brought to the United States nor is it refined here into petrochemicals and other petroleum byproducts.

So why are we paying these exorbitant prices? Well, the simplest explanation is crisis opportunity exploitation” by American oil companies and a business decision made decades ago.

The United States has huge oil deposits from the Heavy-Sour crude we drill for in the Gulf of America to Light-Sweet crude, the best and easiest oil to refine, which we thought we ran of until Fracking became available. Decades ago, our drilling technology was limited to drilling straight down and our wells ran dry of the Light-Sweet crude. So, we were limited to drilling for the Heavy-Sour crude and as our production capacity wasn’t able to keep up with our demand, we bought what we needed from countries like Mexico, Venezuela and Canada.

The United States reached a modern recorded peak of 254 operable oil refineries in 1982, though historical estimates from the early petroleum boom in the 1930s, suggest counts may have exceeded 600 smaller local plants before major industry consolidation. As of 2026, there are 130 operable refineries remaining in the United States, though overall daily production capacity remains near historic highs.

Of those 130 operating refineries, approximately 80 of them are configured for Heavy-Sour crude refining. This decision was made before Fracking technology was available, which now allows the United States, access to the huge deposits of this crude that it has all over the country embedded in rock. However, another decision was made by big oil to sell the majority of the good oil we have at premium prices in the world’s markets while we continue to buy and refine the cheaper Heavy-Sour crude.

So why don’t we instead keep that good oil here, diminish our purchasing of the nasty oil which is harder to refine, and retrofit more of our refineries for the good oil? I’m glad you asked.

Before you go blaming Trump and his bombing campaign against Iran for our higher fuel costs, although it has certainly contributed, the simplest explanation is “crisis opportunity exploitation” by American oil companies. There is no other logical or reasonable explanation because the United States only import approximately 8% of the oil it uses from the Middle East. Why we would buy that oil is a topic for another day.