Leahy to oil co.s:''Every time there is a merger the prices have gone up"

[dajoki]

AP
http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusgen/ap03-14-094402.asp?t=apnew&vts=31420061924

By H. JOSEF HEBERT
ASSOCIATED PRESS


WASHINGTON, March 14 — Top executives from the country's largest oil companies rejected arguments Tuesday that size has allowed them overwhelming market power to force up gasoline and other fuel prices.


The executives, appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, each said that the industry mergers — a dozen over the last decade — have allow U.S. companies to improve efficiency and achieve the size and scale of operation to compete with the world's government-owned energy companies in the search for oil.

''Every time there is a merger the prices have gone up. Is that just coincidence?'' asked Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's ranking Democrat.

Rex Tillerson, chairman of Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, had anticipated the question in his opening remarks. ''With respect to ... whether mergers and acquisitions in our industry have contributed to higher prices at the pump, my answer is no,'' said Tillerson, whose company earned $36 billion last year.

<<snip>>

But senators, both Republicans and Democrats, questioned the concentration of market power, especially in U.S. refining and retail areas.

''It is naive to think that massive consolidation has had no impact'' on prices, said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who suggested ''we should seriously explore divestiture, particularly on the downstream refining and retail'' areas.

In 2004, the five largest refiners controlled 56 percent of the gasoline refined in the United States and the 10 top companies controlled 85 percent, according to a study by Public Citizen, a private advocacy group.

[Trillo]

1. When I've looked, briefly, at the history of the corporation,

the mergers seem designed to consolidate market power. There was a bunch of them in the Robber Baron era, if what I've read was truthful and accurate.

[dajoki]

2. less competition...

higher prices.

[dajoki]

3. kick

[wallwriter]

4. It's especially sickening how contemptuous these bastards are...

They lie with impunity and sneer all the way to the bank. They own too much of Washington to worry about a couple of irate Dems. What the hell can Patrick Leahy really do?