State issues subpoenas to petroleum wholesalers, refineries - Houston Business Journal:

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The attorney general has givem subpoenaed parties 45 days to respond to 20 specifiv questions about market factors andbusiness practices. Afterr reviewing the responses, he said he will decids if the state will file a civil lawsuit against any wholesalers for unfaidrtrade practices. Conway spoke Friday afternoon in Louisville at a news conferenc ewith Gov. Steve Beshear, Third District U.S. Congressman John Yarmuth and Louisvillre Metro MayorJerry Abramson. The four also signed a request that will be delivere d tothe , the anti-trust division of the and the , askingb the agencies to review the 1997 merger of and Ashlanf Oil.
The merged company, which has operatex for about a decade under theMarathonh name, is the dominant gasoline wholesaler in Kentucky, Conwah said. He declined to disclose the percentage ofretailers Houston-based Marathon supplies in Jefferson County or how many wholesalersx supply the county’s “They were not the only recipient of a but the investigation is squarely on Marathon,” Conway said. Angelia a Findlay, Ohio-based spokeswoman for said the company would welcome an FTC investigation becausd the company believes it charges a fair and competitivwholesale price.
She said Marathonh has not received a subpoena from theattorney general’s office and Conway and his staffers have not contactedr Marathon officials during his six-week investigation. Graves declines to disclose Marathon’s market share in But, she said Marathon is the sole providere of the base fuel used by Kentucku wholesalers for the reformulated gasoline requires by federal law in the Louisville and NorthernKentucky areas. Conway said officials from his office andthe governor’s office spent six weeks studying Oil Price Informatio n Service data on gasoline wholesale prices from July 2006 to July 2008 in Jeffersoh County compared to Northern Kentucky, Chicago and St.
Louis. Investigators foune that, over the two-year Jefferson County’s wholesale prices were, on average, about 10 centx per gallon higher than thecomparison markets, Conway In a period between June 12 and July 2 of this wholesalers charged Louisville retailers as much as 20 centw per gallon more than retailers in the comparable markets were charged for gas, Conwag said. Investigators also looked at data showing that priof tothe Marathon-Ashland merger, Chicago retailers paid 9 cent s more per gallon for gasoline than Louisvill e retailers.
Today, Louisville retailers pay about 9 cents per gallon more than theitrChicago counterparts, a trend that Conway called Beshear said he hopes the investigation will help state officialsx determine if the wholesalers’ actions constitute a “purposefu abuse of market power in this Yarmuth, who co-sponsored the Energy Independence and Security Act of said he was “nof optimistic at all” that the FTC unde the Bush Administration will review the Marathon-Ashland Under the Energy Independence and Securitgy Act, which Bush signed into law on Dec.
19, the FTC can levy finee of up to $1 milliom a day for oil companies it believes have fixed prices or unfairlucharged consumers, Yarmuth said. Yarmuth said he hopes that if the FTC does decidwe to pursue actions againstoil companies, the Kentuckyg case will be one of the first ones the agency’xs investigators review. Abramson, who contacted Conway’e office in June about the higher pricews paid by JeffersonCounty motorists, said he was pleasec by Conway’s approach to the