[WackySam]

My guts tell me something is being manipulated BEYOND the cartel (which we already know makes this a non-Free market.)

Of course there is, there is an artificial cap on production. If the companies can't produce more they will be forced to raise prices, and/or find other ways to make money. In this case they have done both, raised margins and found ways to produce more product from a formally un-desirable high sulfur crude base. They pay much less than the market price for sweet crude and pocket the difference.

I don't blame them one bit. Take away the restrictions on refineries and drilling and prices will fall dramatically.

[xzins]

Take away the restrictions on refineries and drilling and prices will fall dramatically.

That's where I think the manipulation is. As they say, "If it looks too good to be true....it probably is." They also say, "follow the money."

I've watched PBS, foundations, politics for years now, and I'm constantly amazed at the support big oil gives to the most liberal of causes. It's like they were funding their own demise or something.

So, the Sierra Club opposes refineries and the oil companies get rich. Is that it?

Tree hugging, radical environmentalists block drilling, coal, oil exploration, refineries, etc., etc.

As a result of all that oil companies have radical, enormous profitability.

If I were an oil company, I'd be hiring infiltrating the environmental movement to fake "being opposed" to by "desire" to build more refineries.

Unless...of course....they already have.