Not understanding Current Oil price

Yeah, the good old days of not too far past, when I could fill up my Jeep with $20 and get change, then it was no change, and now it's my wallet!

I do remember the late '70's, right before the oil crisis (to Americans! to the Saudi's it was a cash flow!), gas was 25 cents a gallon. A few dollars filled up the ole purple Volkswagen Beetle.

So back to my above post...why are the oil wells pumping like mad if there's a refinery problem?

Why are oil companies making record profits right now? It would seem that they could lower the wholesale price of gas and still make plenty of money.

Here is a link to MSNBC article

[Edited to add link]

[edit on 21-5-2007 by keeb333]