I despise the use of the shutter. There's no reason for it, and it's distracting. It's a gimmick. The piece didn't need gimmicks.
I think you could have reacted more quickly to the change in exposure on your standup. Your change in iris lagged way behind. If that had been a spontaneous pan in b-roll, I might have ignored it. But this was a standup, which you set up and which I would assume you had an opportunity to practice to get a detail like that right.
Otherwise, a really good piece. You used the nats very effectively. Your editing was fast-paced, but not to the point of gimmickry. I thought the video matched well to the track and interviews, especially that shot of the guy on the scooter pulling a trailer under the interview talking about people being "forced to get more creative."
Also, I'm glad to see someone not afraid to put away the tripod and use his shoulder. You had some decent handheld work in there that wasn't shaky or jittery like the tripod zealots always scream. Most of them probably wouldn't even notice it wasn't on the tripod if it weren't pointed out to them.
It was a MUCH better gas story than the other one I've seen recently on here.