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My guess it is true. Oil companies are quasi monolopies and have great resources to tweak their production to keep prices high. It's why they haven't taken states to court to build new refineries in the name of the common good to have redundencies for gas supplies. They will spend billions for rigs and for the rights for drilling sites but won't fight to to build new refineries. Also lay blame to politicians who are on the hook of oil lobbyists.

This is where american ingenuity needs to come in and have someone make a more efficient engine. I really do think there is internal research that has produced extremely cheap efficient engines that will never see the light of day because it will upset the auto economy.

Your guess is wrong. I have been in the business for over 30 years, and I can tell you that if the American Oil companies were capable of manipulating prices, then I have not seen it. A brief history lesson. The oil shock of 1973 was caused by the lack of exploration in the United States from the mid 1950's to 1973. The Oil Embargo after the Yom Kippur War was given as the reason, but it actually was because no one explored during the previous time period. The price of oil went from $3 per barrel to $11.50 per barrel (natural gas was .60 per mcf). Then congress, in their infinite wisdom, enacted the Windfall Profits Tax, which shifted any benefit of the higher prices from exploration to the Tax Coffers. This resulted in the Price Shock of 1979, which sent prices from $11.50 per barrel to $33 per barrel. The subsequent flooding of exploration expanded the supply to the point that the Oil Industry crashed in 1982. At that time, the Industry employed over 1,000,000. from 1982 to 2000, the Industry shrank to less than 300,000 employees and there was depression in the oil producing states. The price of oil dropped to less than $10 per barrel (in terms of 1982 dollars that would be about $7.00 per barrel.) The end result of that precipitous drop was that while we imported about 32% of our oil in 1982, we now import 60% of our oil. I personally have been laid off on 3 different occasions. So, my point is, if we are a monopoly and are capable of tweaking our production to keep prices high, we have done an extremely poor job. The real reason for the dramatic price increase is that we have not replaced our reserves for decades, and China, India and other countries have increased their imports by at least 3 million barrels a day. And by the way, typically we have to drill 10 wildcats to find one commercially producing field at an average cost of $1.4 MM Dollars per well, of which nine of those are dry holes. On the other side, there undoubtedly is some price gouging that is occuring. But please don't lump all of us into one basket.

"I really do think there is internal research that has produced extremely cheap efficient engines that will never see the light of day because it will upset the auto economy."

Not a chance. Auto companies would love to develop more fuel-efficient engines that have just as much power, reliability, and durability as current engines. What you invariably find with these garage-built engines that guys claim can get 70 mpg, is that they don't actually get 70 mpg or they lack the power, reliability, or durability of current auto engines. Gas-electric hybrid engines are for real though, and the prices of these vehicles will be dropping as production increases. That's the wave of the future, at least for the next twenty years.