Documents suggest effort to boost prices by cutting refinery output
Associated Press
Friday, June 15, 2001
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Even as the Bush administration cites a lack of refineries as a cause of energy shortages, oil industry documents show that five years ago
companies sought ways to cut refinery output to raise profits.
The internal memos involving several major oil companies were released Thursday by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., whose office obtained them from a whistleblower. He
said the materials did not necessarily reflect any illegal activities but said some of them "sure look very anticompetitive."
In response, Red Cavaney, the president of an industry trade group, said: "This finger pointing six years into the past serves no useful purpose."
Wyden was turning the material over to the Governmental Affairs Committee, which plans hearings on oil industry practices and energy prices.
Xerox drops small-office
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Xerox Corp. is exiting the small-office equipment business, which accounts for 3 percent of revenue but is draining profits, and cutting up to 1,050
jobs in the Rochester region and in Ireland.
The move is intended to help the No. 1 copier company steer clear of steep financial losses without abandoning its core businesses in the office-printing industry. The job
cuts represent about 1.2 percent of its work force.
Xerox, based in Stamford, Conn., said Thursday it will discontinue its line of low-cost personal copiers, inkjet printers and multifunction machines sold primarily through
retailers. It will, however, still provide service and supplies to its existing customers.
Heightened competition from rivals led by Hewlett-Packard Co., accompanied by a slowdown in projected sales of home computers and inkjet printers in the United
States, makes the so-called small-office, home-office business "a far less attractive opportunity," said Anne Mulcahy, Xerox's president and chief operating officer.
Xerox also is closing inkjet printer operations at its flagship Irish plant in Dundalk, a move that could cost another 350 jobs.
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