WASHINGTON -- Top executives of the five biggest U.S. oil companies said Tuesday they know high fuel prices are hurting consumers, but deflected any blame and argued their profits -- $123 billion last year -- were in line with other industries.
"On April Fool's Day, the biggest joke of all is being played on American families by Big Oil," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mich., as his committee began hearing from the oil company executives.
Lawmakers were looking for answers to the soaring fuel costs a day after the Energy Department said the national average price of gasoline reached a record $3.29 cents a gallon and global oil prices remained above $100 a barrel although supplies of both gasoline and oil seemed to be adequate.
"I heard what you are hearing," John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., told Markey, adding in prepared testimony that he knows that "Americans are worried about the rising price of energy.... These cost increases are hitting consumers hard, particularly the poor and those on fixed incomes."
But neither Hofmeister nor the executives from Exxon Mobil Corp., BP America Inc., Chevron Corp., and ConocoPhillips said their companies should be blamed and they rejected the notion that their profits are extreme.
"Our earnings, though high in absolute terms, need to be viewed in the context of the scale and cyclical, long-term nature of our industry as well as the huge investment requirements," said J.S. Simon, Exxon Mobil's senior vice president. Last year the oil and gas industry earned 8.3 cents per dollar of sales, only a little higher than the Dow Jones Industrial Average for major industries, he argued in prepared testimony.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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