Does it seem like you’re paying too much at the pump? Sometimes it feels that way here, where gas has recently been in the $1.40-$1.50/gallon range. But it turns out things could be worse. I could be the U.S. government, purchasing gas from a friendly Halliburton station in Iraq:
A Democratic lawmaker yesterday accused Halliburton, the Texas oil services company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, of overcharging the US government for gasoline the firm imports into Iraq.
Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, has a contract with the US Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild Iraq’s oil sector, which has included importing gasoline products in short supply to the oil-rich nation.
“Millions of Americans want to help Iraqis but they don’t want to be fleeced [by Halliburton],” Representative Henry Waxman of California said at a news conference.
Waxman said Army documents showed that as of Sept. 18, the United States had paid Halliburton $300 million to import about 190 million gallons of gasoline into Iraq. Halliburton charged an average price of $1.59 per gallon, excluding the company’s fee of 2 percent to 7 percent, said Waxman.
He said the average wholesale cost of gasoline during that period in the Middle East was about 71 cents a gallon, a figure an oil industry source told Reuters was accurate. That meant Halliburton was charging more than 90 cents a gallon to transport fuel into Iraq from Kuwait.
“When we checked with independent experts to see if this fee was reasonable, they were stunned,” said Waxman, saying a reasonable transport cost would be 10 to 25 cents per gallon.
Taking the price at the high end of the range, that works out to be a $0.65/gallon Halliburton surcharge. But hey, I’m sure the service is extra good. Or the former CEO benefits are good. Or something.
Via No More Mister Nice Blog.