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California Subpoenas Oil Refiners

April 27, 2006
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer says he will subpoena documents from all 21 California oil refineries to determine whether they are profiteering and gouging consumers. Companies targeted by the subpoenas will include ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Valero, Shell, BP and others.

"While California drivers cut back on essentials so they can gas up their cars, oil companies continue to rake in multi-billion dollar profits," said Lockyer. "The companies and their CEOs keep telling us to avert our eyes from the profits and focus on their costs."

"But they want us to take their word on faith," Lockyer said. "They never provide the numbers, so we can see exactly how much of their skyrocketing margins are costs and how much are profits. Long-suffering California drivers deserve to know that information. I intend to get it."

In Arizona, Attorney General Terry Goddard said an investigation into last year's steep rise in gas prices following Hurricane Katrina found sharply higher profit margins but no violations of state law.

Lockyer also announced he has convened a multi-disciplinary task force from his antitrust, corporate responsibility, consumer law and criminal units to explore all potential law enforcement options in his ongoing investigation of California's oil and gasoline market.

In California -- where seven oil companies control more than 95 percent of the state's refining capacity -- refiners' margins historically have far outstripped the national average.

So far in 2006, according to the California Energy Commission, the difference between the price oil companies pay for crude and the price they charge at the pump has spiraled upward by 130 percent. Meanwhile, the price for crude has risen only 14 percent.

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