Oil Company Collusion to Control Prices

When gas prices rise, I've often heard accusations that the oil companies are engaged in collusion to push prices higher, thus raising their profits. I've always rolled my eyes at this, but with the current spike decided to surf a bit and see what I could find.

I came across the following report from Oregon Senator Ron Wyden:
www.cbsnews.com...

It's a little old (Summer 2001), but it links up with when gas prices started to rise. There are some damning accusations in this report, directly from internal oil company documents. The long and short of it is that these large oil companies closed refineries in an effort to limit supply and raise prices.

I find this pretty disturbing. Consumers have been led to believe that we're just seeing the 'free market' at work. If oil companies have been colluding to control supply by closing refineries, why haven't we heard about it in the mainstream media? Has anyone come across this before?

This makes me wonder if the peak oil information that I have been led to believe might be nothing more than propaganda to raise the price of oil. I still remember Enron and how they stole money from me. One thing that does raise the price of oil is the higher insurance premiums paid for shipping out of the mid-east.