With oil trading today at times with at $19 handle, worry is growing in the American shale oil industry as well as calls for government action to stop the carnage for national security reasons.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry declared on Fox News last night that America is facing a national security crisis with the oil price meltdown, as the consequence will be once again having the U.S. dependent on Middle Eastern oil for its energy security.

"Our capacity is full. The Saudis are flooding this market with with cheap oil," Perry told Tucker Carlson last night. "I'm telling you, we are on the verge of a massive collapse of an industry that we worked awfully hard, over the course of the last three or four years, to build up to the number one oil and gas producing country in the world, giving Americans some affordable energy resources." 

"There's this host of Americans who their entire future – taking care of their family paying their mortgages – is tied directly to the energy industry...It's a driver of a massive amount of our American economy." 

"If we woke up a year from now, and there were five big companies because all of these independents were gone out of business ... I would suggest that would make a lot of Americans really nervous," he said. 

In related news, Whiting Petroleum Corporation announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The CEO Bradley Holly declared, "The severe downturn in oil and gas prices driven by uncertainty around the duration of the Saudi / Russia oil price war and the COVID-19 pandemic." 

Whiting is a major job creator in the independent fracking sector, and headquartered in Denver, CO.

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