The following cannot be true, big corporations would never do this, would they?
Concentration of Gas Industry Allows
For Manipulation, Senate Panel Says
By JOHN J. FIALKA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- Congressional investigators are warning that a continuing concentration of the nation's petroleum-refining industry could allow refiners to manipulate tight gasoline supplies to impose price increases and maximize profits.
Using documents subpoenaed from oil refiners and court records, the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations studied two areas of the country where gasoline markets are tightest: California and the Michigan, Ohio and Illinois region. Price spikes that plagued motorists last summer have begun to reappear there.
Each 10-cent increase in the retail price of gasoline, according to the study, adds $10 billion in industry revenue. In 1981, the industry was dominated by 189 companies that owned 324 refineries; today 63 companies own 150 U.S. refineries as small independent refiners and gasoline marketers have dwindled.
The report, released Monday, says an internal memo subpoenaed from BP PLC "confirms" that at least one major oil company was looking for ways to limit supplies of gasoline available to the Midwest in the fuel-short summer of 1999. Among the options discussed in the memo, titled "Market Levers-Product Short," are shutting down refining capacity, lobbying for changes in environmental laws that would make gasoline shipment by pipeline more difficult, offering incentives to another company not to ship gasoline to Chicago and exporting more gasoline to outlets in Ontario.
You gotta luv big business... |
