We’re speaking with the Senator, the Attorney General’s Office and Gas-buddy dot-com to find out if the refinery is actually to blame or if this could be a case of price gouging.
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Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan and Congresswoman Jackie Walorski of Indiana have issued a joint statement demanding that BP “release as much information as they can regarding the maintenance schedule so that speculators will not trigger what happened this week”.
Attorney General Bill Schuette has sent a letter to British Petroleum, the owner of the refinery, and other oil companies advising them of the need for transparency when dealing with outages and other unexpected events. “BP is working to safely restart the unit as soon as possible”. The snafu occurred just after BP completed a multi-billion dollar modernization, according to company records. The I-Team reported on Thursday that Michigan Sen.
The average cost for a gallon of unleaded in Lansing went up 44 cents Wednesday after going up 40 cents on Tuesday.
GasBuddy experts say the higher prices at the pump are the result of a production problem because the BP Whiting Refinery in northwestern Indiana shut down unexpectedly over the weekend.
Michigan’s spike in gasoline prices comes as world crude oil prices are at a six-year low.
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State Senator John Proos wants Attorney General Bill Schuette to launch an investigation. “These circumstances do not constitute a free pass for gas stations to gouge consumers”, said Schuette. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said this week that her office had received consumer complaints as well, after gas prices surged higher. The Department investigates any time there is evidence that state law has been violated for gouging or price fixing.
