A month ago, my colleagues and I conducted a study on a new Texas oil refinery, America First Refining, which had concealed financial backing from Donald Trump Jr. Our research unveiled a complex narrative encompassing the Trump administration’s tariff strategy, Russian oil under sanctions, and a private zoo owned by an Indian billionaire family. The refinery company’s CEO, John Calce, a Texas entrepreneur, was at the heart of the tale. For several weeks, we had been investigating Calce, delving into past legal cases, property records, and corporate documents. This led us to create a profile of a relatively unknown serial entrepreneur who had been consistently unsuccessful in obtaining funding for his ambitious refinery plan. Just before our article was scheduled to be published, we conducted a thorough search on another company he had established called Brownsville Energy Storage Terminals. Upon finding the company’s website, I experienced a sudden rush of anxiety: Could it be that we had overlooked a significant business owned by the main subject of our upcoming report? “Covering the distance from Houston to Rotterdam, Jurong to Fujairah.” “Our network links the globe’s primary energy markets with rapidity, security, and exactness in bulk oil storage,” declared the homepage of the company’s website. A screenshot was captured by ProPublica. According to the website, Brownsville Energy Storage Terminals employed over 850 individuals and possessed a storage capacity of 28 million barrels of oil across their six international locations. This was perplexing: We had assumed that Calce was having trouble raising funds for just one project in the United States, but it turned out that he was managing a vast, international oil storage company. Could our initial understanding have been incorrect? We referred to Google to get more information on the leading executives of the company. The company’s CEO, Sarah Jenkins, possessed over 20 years of expertise in significant energy companies.
