Six US senators Tuesday asked the Justice Department's Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group to conduct a "refinery by refinery probe" into spikes in West Coast gasoline prices in May and October.
The request, from Democratic senators from California, Washington and Oregon, asks the Justice Department to investigate whether "market manipulation or false reporting by oil refineries" contributed to near-record prices on the West Coast earlier this year.
"We are requesting a Department of Justice investigation of possible market manipulation and false reporting by oil refineries which may have created a perception of a supply shortage, when in fact refineries were still producing," the senators wrote.
The request was based on a report produced by McCullough Research, an Oregon-based energy research company, that suggested that some California refineries may have been producing gasoline during times when media reports suggested equipment was shut for maintenance.
The report, presented to a California legislative hearing November 15, said that no conclusion can be reached about manipulation because there is not enough reliable data on the operation of specific refineries.
But the report suggested that refinery outages and supply disruptions do not fully explain the spike in prices.
"We hope the Justice Department and members of the Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group will launch a refinery-by-refinery level probe," the senators wrote.
The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and Chevron, whose Richmond, California, refinery was singled out in the McCullough report, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The senators requesting the probe were: Maria Cantwell, Democrat-Washington, Ron Wyden, Democrat-Oregon, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat-California, Patty Murray, Democrat-Washington, Barbara Boxer, Democrat-California and Jeff Merkley, Democrat-Oregon.
