Some say that makes them price villains — and has led to repeated calls for taxes on them to hold down windfall profits. But oil companies say those big profits are needed to reinvest in more oil exploration and production.

The 2002 Senate probe into gas pricing essentially called big oil companies a big price villain.

It said it found that big gas price hikes "result in large transfers of wealth from consumers to a few companies that refine and market gasoline. Over the course of a year, each 10-cent increase in the price of gasoline results in approximately an additional $10 billion in revenues to the oil companies."

But Peacock says those big profits are needed to find and develop future supplies, including locally in Utah.

"Unfortunately, our oil production has been declining since the mid-'80s in Utah, so we're nowhere near self-sufficient when it comes to oil production," Peacock says. But, "There has been somewhat of a resurgence of production in Utah with the high prices that have allowed additional exploration."

He adds, "We have picked all the low-hanging fruit in the U.S. All of the readily available, easy-to-find, easy-to-produce fields have, for the most part, been found and produced."

Peacock says big profits "allow oil producers to be more aggressive to use more of the technological advances that have come into play in the last few years and explore for and produce more areas that are more technologically challenging."

That may include finally developing Utah's vast oil reserves from tar sands and oil shale. Developing them has been considered too expensive (although about 25 percent of local gasoline already comes from tar sands in Alberta).

Big oil also contends that its earnings are not out of line compared to other industries. An American Petroleum Institute statement to the Senate in March said, "Over the last five years, the oil and natural gas industry's earnings average 5.8 cents compared to an average for all U.S. industry of 5.5 cents for every dollar of sales."

The cost of clean air

Cleaning up fuels over recent decades has meant cleaner air — but at a cost. So, not surprisingly, big oil points to environmental groups as a price villain, too.

The American Petroleum Institute sent a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee in March outlining some of its reasons.

For example, it said that while the oil industry once "produced two types of gasoline — leaded and unleaded — it now has 17 formulations" because of varying clean air standards in different states at different times of the year, which increases refining and distribution costs.