>How much experience do you have with the industry? Ever work for an oil company? Hang out with people that do? Any relations in the business?

None whatsoever, except as a consumer. [I did have a friend who worked in IT of an oil company, but he knew zilch about the business]

Often (less so these days, thus "often") businesses try to keep prices down and customers happy. I think I'm not alone in saying that the oil companies seem to do neither.
Their modus-operandi seems to be gouge, then gouge again, then gouge some more.

I have experience is a business that operates similarly - banking.
There the staff doesn't quite comprehend why it is that ever-escalating "service charges" and new "service charges" bother people, but then staff don't pay service charges, so little wonder.