Big Oil limiting gasoline supply

California pays for corporate chicanery

Californians are paying the highest price in the continental United States for gasoline. The nation’s big oil companies announced world record profits for the first quarter, building on last year’s world record profits. Sound familiar?

The latest version of California’s electricity crisis registered $3.37 per gallon at the pump last week.

A few years ago, Enron and other energy companies turned off the lights and robbed Californians blind. They did it by closing power plants and artificially withholding electricity to give the illusion of scarcity. That made the price of electricity soar, even though the price of producing it was minimal.

Big Oil is playing a similar game now. A few large oil companies are making billions of dollars by artificially limiting refined gasoline supplies to jack up prices far in excess of raw material and production costs. (That’s why a recent drop in crude oil prices isn’t resulting in reductions at the pump.)

San Francisco Chronicle