Earlier this year, as oil prices recovered from their pandemic lows and oil-producing companies miraculously stuck to their pledged production cuts, headlines were flooded with semi-alarmist speculation about painfully high gas prices coming down the pike. Now, high gas prices are back in the news, but this time the oil companies and production curbs are not to blame — the culprit now is retail fuel station chains, which are accused of colluding to artificially inflate gas prices at the pumps. Back in March Oilprice reported that “ U.S. Consumers Will Pay The Bill For Higher Crude Prices ,” noting that oil companies were breaking with their normal pattern of cutting production when oil prices deflate and immediately returning to a “drill, baby, drill!” attitude the millisecond that the market shows signs of recovery. This time was different . After the novel coronavirus pushed oil prices to punishing new lows, […]