Connecticut Expands Gas Prices Probe

HARTFORD (AP) —Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection has issued subpoenas to ten gasoline wholesalers, expanding its investigation into complaints of sudden price spikes at the pumps.

The new subpoenas come on top of requests earlier this week to several retailers, including Cumberland Farms, Citgo, Valero, Getty, and Lukoil.

Governor M. Jodi Rell said September 19 that the state wants information about prices before and after Hurricane Ike, which affected oil-producing regions in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico.

Seven of the ten wholesalers subpoenaed are based in Connecticut. ExxonMobil and Sunoco also are among those subpoenaed.

Rell says a state hot line has recorded about 600 complaints of suspected price gouging of up to 48 cents per gallon. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s office has received an additional several hundred complaints.

Blumenthal said his office subpoenaed five other wholesalers this week and is preparing to subpoena others.

In addition to suspected price gouging, he is reviewing whether any of the companies engaged in price collusion or conduct that violates the state’s antitrust laws.

Blumenthal said he is troubled that gasoline futures contracts for October are dropping, but prices at the gas pumps have not. In some cases, he said, they have increased.

“The trends are very perplexing and even somewhat suspect,” he said, adding they had not yet reached any conclusions.