Accountability is Patriotism

The Magic Oil Disappearing Act

This is part of Accountability Is Patriotism, a series marking America's 250th year by asking a simple question: when life gets harder for most Americans, who in power is answerable for it, and what are they doing about it?

Hello, folks, and welcome back to the show.

This week's act is an old one: watch the biggest energy producer on Earth make its own oil disappear. Another 9.3 million barrels vanished last week, and U.S. crude oil inventories are now at their lowest level since 1983.

Part of the trick is simple. Refineries are running flat out at a 96.6% utilization rate, burning through crude to lock in near-record profits (the crack spread) while they can.

And now, the oddity that stops the crowd. Somewhere in every carnival there is the act billed "strange but true," the thing that should not be possible.

Look closely at the tail end of the above chart. There it is.

Crude oil is in freefall, down from over $105 toward the low $70s. And the crack spread, the refiner's margin, is not falling with it. It is climbing, and it is now well into "acute" territory, the band analysts reserve for genuine stress. Refiners are pulling in crisis-level profits while their main cost collapses. Strange but true. And it tells us something specific: America has more crude than the market wants, even as we drain our inventories, but less gasoline and diesel than it needs.

You can watch it happen on our newly updated seasonal EIA inventory tracker. This week is a little special, too. Data 4 The People's own Founding Data Architect, Amanda Sinton, enhanced the tool so you can see the vintage of the data. Click any decade to light up its years and compare a normal one against the drop we are watching now.

Now for the grand finale. Even as inventories fall at what may be the fastest rate on record, the U.S. keeps exporting record amounts of the crude it produces to other countries. Good to know we are looking out for everyone else, even as we hand away the reserves that keep America moving.

Okay. This is not a circus.

There is no trick, and the barrels that are leaving this country are not coming back. This is real, and, in my view, it is getting scary. What we are watching unfold in real time is a clear sign that America has no energy security policy. If we had even an ounce of one, we would stop these exports now. Instead, the people in charge take their cues from the market, not the data. So we sit and watch our own reserves drain away like it is entertainment.

The alarm is ringing. No one is listening.

Where is the accountability?