Contents

Chapter1 – Record Profits

          Are Americans paying for the Oil Industry’s record profits?

Chapter 2 – Oil Companies 

           Who are these money-guzzling corporations?

Chapter 3 – Competition or Collusion

            Is there a competitive market with a level playing field?

Chapter 4 – Oil Company Control

            Who is really making the money?

Chapter 5 – Federal Trade Commission

            Regulators or Cohorts?

Chapter 6 – Pricing Across America

            Why do prices vary across the country?

Chapter 7 – Refineries

            Who Owns Them?  Why are they important?

Chapter 8- Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

            The typical story lines when prices go up at the pump.

Chapter 9 – Oil Supplier

            Why so much talk about OPEC?

Chapter 10- Stopping the Madness  

            Can Oil Companies be Trusted?

Introduction:

Wouldn’t it be great to be in business and have a product everyone needed? And what if within this enterprise your competitors were few and far between? Or better yet what if you could arrange it so that in your utopia competitors were not even truly competing against you, but had some type of alliance with you that would benefit all of your pocketbooks? Interested? Well then, welcome to the United States of America’s oil and petroleum business!

This industry can be somewhat complicated, but is not difficult to understand.  Does it make sense for our country and economy, which is literally fueled by oil and gas, to allow five oil companies to control 62% of the industry? These major oil companies are the explorers, producers, refiners, wholesalers, transporters and marketers/retailers of the oil and gas products. These few major oil companies control the oil industry from the time they get it out of the ground until it reaches your home, car or business.

Retail gasoline service stations owners and operators have filed countless lawsuits against oil companies in the last ten years. The data points to our government‘s laissez faire attitude, and particularly the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice’s approach to “protecting” consumers or business interests when it comes to oil.

Big oil companies have great public relations machines that release information about why fuel and home heating prices are rising or why they are so high. People may think they are helpless to higher fuel prices, but this is not true. Petroleum prices affect everyone’s personal pocket book and virtually affect every business in America. In the bigger picture, oil and gas prices have a huge impact on the well being of this country and the World.

Oil companies need to be accountable not only to their stockholders, but to the public at large. They need to be good stewards of our community’s resources. Integrity is a word that corporate America should abide by and subscribe to. We have witnessed too many companies that have not been truthful or fair with their consumers and stockholders.  Is being truthful and fair too much to ask?

As a former gas station owner and Texaco dealer, I can speak with first-hand knowledge of oil company pricing practices, their control of the marketplace, and even the oil industries’ egos and attitudes. This book will specifically look at what can be done to bring down the price of fuel. We will consider some very important questions and explore their answers. Including questions such as, Will a gasoline boycott be productive? Will a boycott of one company bring down the price of the entire industry? What is divorcement and will it work? Why don’t we have alternative fuel sources for our automobiles? Do we need to increase regulations or have mandates on refineries? Our energy policy has not changed in the last thirty year, isn’t it time for a change? 

My hope is that you’ll consider the overwhelming evidence that supports the numerous claims of oil company collusion and parallel pricing. By better informing yourself through reading this book and witnessing the active efforts by oil companies to limit competition through predatory pricing, price discrimination, anti trust practices, raising rents, eliminating rebate programs, zone pricing, price-fixing, manipulation, limiting production, and controlling supply, I trust that you (and all of America) will band together and recognize the detriment of allowing these few firms to control such a vital marketplace and become informed and enraged enough to take action!

Richard Clough