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Credit Pacific Service Union In testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee, two leading consumer groups placed much of the blame for higher gasoline prices on domestic oil companies. The groups noted that consolidation in the refining industry has enabled large oil companies to restrict the supplies that make it to the pump, sending gas prices higher and leading to windfall profits.

It's not only the oil price that continues to rise. Wholesale gas prices have also hit record highs recently, ...

Credit First Service Union "Blaming high gas prices on high crude oil prices ignores that fact that over the past few years, the domestic refining and marketing sector have imposed larger increases on consumers at the pump than crude price increases would warrant, said Mark Cooper, director of research at the Consumer Federation of America. "While OPEC's tightening of supplies hasn?t helped the situation, a lot of the blame rests with American oil companies squeezing more and more profit out of American consumers."

the world' exporting countries, particularly OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. The amount of crude oil that these countries produce determines the price per barrel of oil. The next factor that effects gas prices is the cost of refining the crude oil. This makes up about 10% of the total price of gas. The third factor is the cost of transporting the crude oil to a refinery, then the refined gas to a distribution point

Card Credit Mobile Service According to Consumers Union and the Consumer Federation of America, the gasoline refining and marketing segments of the domestic industry have increased pump prices by $50 billion to $60 billion in the past four years. This is apart from any price increases brought on by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) tightening supplies. This means that up to $60 billion of after-tax windfall profits have gone to the domestic petroleum industry over that period.

(AXcess News) Roswell, Americans constantly looking for the place to lay blame for our exorbitant gas prices and shortages can stop searching for a scapegoat and simply take a look in the mirror. The high prices per gallon are not so much the result of hotbed issues in Iran, Iraq and Nigeria, or hurricanes, or OPEC demands, supplier price fixing, or refinery output machinations, or government ineptitude, or worldwide consumption requirements, or continental pipeline shortfalls, producing countries, or supertanker groundings, or, or, or Actually, Americans themselves are to blame.

Card Credit Discover Service Much of this windfall can be attributed to a wave of mergers in the 1990s that dramatically increased concentration of the industry into the hands of a small number of giant companies, whose decisions restricted capacity, undermined independent suppliers and rendered markets uncompetitive and vulnerable to manipulation.

The news comes as price increases in the wholesale price of gas has meant power companies have raised tariffs for domestic customers. Powergen announced on Tuesday that it was to increase its gas price by 24.4% and British Gas itself upped gas prices by 22%. Centrica today announced it has reached agreement to double its interest in the Statfjord oil and gas field in the northern North Sea, and that this will see more gas on the UK market.

Credit Public Service Union "With the oil companies exerting so much power over the market, it's difficult to bring prices down in the short-term," said Adam Goldberg, policy analyst with Consumers Union, who is urging the federal government to shine a spotlight on industry practices. "One way to discourage market manipulation is to institute a windfall profits tax. As long as huge windfall profits can be made, private sector market participants will have a strong incentive to keep markets tight."

Harry Reid's attempt to interfere in the commodities exchanges failed this morning along mostly partisan lines. Democrats are blaming high gasoline prices on "excessive" speculation in oil and gas futures. This is typical of Democrats, who would rather blame hedge funds (framed as "fat cats", but who serve an important market purpose) than deal with the actual problem.

Card Credit Processing Service "In the long-term, policymakers should concentrate on breaking OPEC's pricing power," Cooper continued. "That would relieve a lot of the pressure from consumers energy bills. But that alone isn't enough to get the oil industry to start pricing gasoline at the pump fairly." Other long-term solutions proposed by the consumer groups, include:

Center Credit Service Union -Restoring reserve margins by increasing both fuel efficiency (demand-side) and refining production capacity (supply-side)

Card Credit Service Wireless -Increasing market flexibility trough stock and storage policy

Credit Security Service Union -Discouraging private actions that make markets tight and/or exploit market disruptions by countering the tendency to profiteer by withholding of supply

Credit Report Service -Promoting a more competitive industry.

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