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/

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