re: Guess who the number one exporter of oil in the world is???

That would be stupid The US imports more crude oil than it exports. FACT.

The oil/gas industry operating in the US in not nationalized. The collective intent has nothing to do with helping average Americans do better unless some of those Americans are stock holders. These local up to multinational companies do not have to do the US government's bidding. The industry in some countries is nationalized: like Norway, middle eastern states, China, some African companies, etc. Being owned by government, they heavily participate in market manipulation for policy purposes.

Okay, so Oil companies are making a killing while our population suffers with higher prices.

Jobs. And not minimum wage either. Pipefitters, engineers, geologists, refinery workers, drillers, truckers, shippers. They all buy things too and pay taxes. Money from sales comes back to the USA and is taxed, reinvested. People own stock and get dividends.

Why do we export anything?

Now export communists and everyone gains.

I don't give a crap about what any journalist writes. It is a fact that Calumet built two refineries to serve the fuel requirements for Bakken area and both shutdown because they went bankrupt. This is cost dried up investment backing for the Juniper GTL plant that Calumet and Quintana Oil were financing. Calumet was going to buy the wax from it as they are in the wax business from their refinery in Shreveport already. This caused Juniper to declare bankruptcy when it was nearing completion.

It is fact that Polaris EPC from Lake Charles built a grassroots refinery specifically designed to use feed from Eagle Ford which is lighter than gasoline. The owner got a great deal on some heavy crude and phucked it up. Polaris finally won in arbitration but hasn't gotten a dime yet and still has a lien on the refinery. That was completed in June 2020.

Try harder, I've forgotten more than you will likely ever know about the industry I am presently working with Polaris to re-erect a refinery overseas that I am negotiating with a buyer to sell. It's 30,000 BPD fully integrated with the newest technology available fo hydroprocessing and converting H2S into fertilizer. The refinery was found to not be needed and the pipeline of crude to it diverted flow to a more profitable refinery for the same owner. The pipelines came from a field in decline and did not supply enough crude to run at capacity, especially in winter. It is designed for light sweet crude. To refine Permian "crude" would have required installing a larger fired heater for the crude unit because lighter needs more heat to get rid of the entrained gases (light ends)