Yes, we can.

[scaeagles]

Here is somethign that could explain it a bit.

Exxon Mobil once again reported the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history Thursday, posting net income of $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion in the second quarter.

Note the volume of business. It's immense. Honestly, I don't know where all their income comes from.

Exxon actually buys more crude than it sells.

Profits from its refining business totaled $1.6 billion in the quarter, less than half of what they were last year.

So they are making much less on refining the product than they were because of higher oil prices. Yes, they produce oil, but they buy more to refine than they actually produce themselves.

While oil prices in the quarter were nearly twice as high as the same time last year, gasoline prices only rose about 30%.

Seems like there could be justification for gas to be even more expensive.

Recent efforts by countries such as Russia, Venezuela and Kazakhstan to gain greater control of their own domestic oil resources have also hampered the ability of international oil companies to increase production.

These countries are just a few who are expanding control of their resources for domestic use. This pushes up the price of oil on the international market.

Defenders of oil company profits also point out that their profit margin, at around 8%, is slightly below average for S&P 500 companies

So CP, the oil companies are not gouging anyone.