Philip Verleger is an oil and gas industry economist at the University of Calgary.

NPR: Oil Prices Hovering At 3-Year Low

Verleger is extreme but not alone in his view of what federal hoarding is doing to oil prices.

FORBES: Strategic Oil Move

In the past few years, argues Mr Verleger, they have been propping up the oil price by keeping inventories down in consuming economies.

ECONOMIST: How OPEC's fear of $5 oil led to $50 oil

Mr. PHILIP VERLEGER (Energy Analyst): When one sees very high margins, there's every incentive to push the refinery to make as much gasoline as possible.

NPR: Refinery Backlog Prompts Spike in Gas Prices

Energy analyst Philip Verleger worries that high prices last year may have caused refiners to overwork their facilities, setting the stage for more trouble this year.

NPR: Refinery Backlog Prompts Spike in Gas Prices

Philip Verleger, an energy economist with the Brattle Group, a consultancy, observes that successful central banks are secretive about when they will intervene in the foreign exchanges.

ECONOMIST: Oil

Mr. VERLEGER: In one sense, the refiners are paying the price now for the fact that they laid off so many workers in the '80s and the '90s when margins were not so good.

NPR: Refinery Backlog Prompts Spike in Gas Prices

"The principal motivation and the primary competitive justification for BP-Amoco and Exxon-Mobil is to gain the necessary scale to undertake larger and riskier global exploration and development projects that become available, " says Philip K. Verleger Jr.

FORBES: Industry: The John D. way

So says energy economist Philip Verleger.

FORBES: Strategic Oil Move