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April 25, 2006
Oil Company Profits Driving Up Gasoline Prices
The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights funded an investigation into why gasoline prices have increased lately. Their conclusion is that corporate markups and profiteering are responsible for spring price spikes, not rising crude costs or the national switchover to higher-cost ethanol, as the oil industry claim.The study used California as an example and found that 40 cents of the 60-cent/gallon increase in California's gasoline prices over the last 3.5 months is attributed to increased refinery and marketing profit margins for oil companies.
Source: Based on this report
Refiners mostly blame ethanol substitution for MTBE as the reason, but comparing prices in California (which uses ethanol blends) with prices in Washington (which does not use ethanol blends), this excuse doesn't add up. Consumers in California will pay $546 million more for their gasoline in April 2006 than in April of last year.
The FTCR is also slamming Exxon for only spending $10 million on alternative energy research, compared to the $400 million that their ex-CEO is receiving for his services.
Posted by dymaxion at April 25, 2006 03:41 PM