Tankers, Pipelines & Rails

For months the U.S. has been heading towards a transport bottleneck. Last week it was just around the corner—and so, as a result, were gasolineless Sundays. A transport shortage complicated older bottlenecks, notably steel. It also created new bottlenecks in commodities of which the U.S. still has a surplus—notably oil.

The U.S. has plenty of oil, produces 60% of the world supply. In fact, the oil industry has been one of World War II's conspicuous orphans, having suffered consistently from overproduction. But the oil fields are far from the oil market. Last...