Chicago Story

Several blogs have been abuzz with a remarkable story from the Chicago Tribune. Paul Salopek tracked the origin and route of gas pumped from a nearby station. In essence, he de-fungized oil.

The oil industry largely refused to help him. Only Marathon - a gas station that consistently offers the cheapeast price in southern suburbia - aided Salopek's mission by sharing some data. He actually volunteered dozens of times to work at a gas station where he interviewed people (disclosing that he was a reporter) between janitorial tasks. He finished with a 4 part series for the paper. I would be surprised if he does not develop a book out of it.

I grew apprehensive at the first Matthew Simmons quote and discussion of peak oil, but Salopek integrates it well and does not become sidetracked with the peak oil debate. This is good reading. It mixes the daily lives of gas station attendents with those on the rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. It hops between lecture and human interest. It even seems to be rather balanced.

U.S. refineries have dwindled from more than 300 to just 145 over the last 25 years. Industry blames this perilous bottleneck in the nation's gasoline production on environmental red tape and public opposition to new oil infrastructure--BANANA they call it, Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody. But critics claim that Big Oil actually likes the status quo; the inevitable shortfalls drive up gas prices.

This article may seem lengthy, but it rolls many insights into a few paragraphs.

Americans already get more oil from Africa than from Saudi Arabia. By 2015, oil experts say, African states will supply a quarter of all U.S. imports, up from 15 percent today. The United States quietly signaled this shift in 2002, when the State Department declared African oil a "strategic national interest," meaning in diplomatic code that U.S. troops may intervene to protect it.

"I think the U.S. military would find our swamps worse than Iraq," snorted Austin Onuoha, a Nigerian human-rights activist who specializes in oil issues. "But at least they might build some infrastructure after they invade. Americans always do this, right?"

Onuoha's sarcasm was well-earned. He was talking in the dark, from his blacked-out house in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The electricity in Africa's petro-giant had winked out again. And this fit sourly into his main thesis: Oil is rotting Africa's frail democracies.

As for the people who think the United States need to install a windfall tax to capture some of the "unfair" profiting of oil companies, they must seriously freak out when they consider how it impacts the areas from which it is extracted.

Jeremiah's catch fetched 450 naira at the local market, about $3. His boat engine had swallowed $6 in fuel. As it happened, it was Oct. 27, the day when Exxon Mobil announced record quarterly oil and gas profits of $7.35 billion.