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Enron and several other individuals and firms were involved in an extensive conspiracy to manipulate electricity prices on the West Coast of the United States through activities such as exporting electricity generated inside of California outside the state before reimporting it for greater profits, arranging for forced outages at power stations to restrict generating capacity, and generally manipulating the market. They took advantage of the fact that California was a partially deregulated market in which distribution utilities had a legal obligation to provide customers with electricity but were limited in their ability to pass through costs to consumers outside of a rate hearing. Meanwhile, generating prices were unregulated and could increase greatly, but the distributors would have to purchase the power to meet customer needs. Eventually several of California's major utilities went bankrupt due to the market manipulation or otherwise had to be bailed out by the state.
Could something similar have been done with petroleum in the 1970s given the circumstances of the time, especially around the time of the shortages that started in summer 1972 (well over a year before the unprecedented Arab petroleum embargo started in October 1973)? Could the major petroleum companies have manipulated the market to crush the independents and/or otherwise increase profits despite the market controls imposed on them?
This thread might be relevant regarding the energy shortages that started before October 1973.