More than two dozen class-action lawsuits have been filed in New Mexico’s U.S. District Court alleging that some of the nation’s largest oil producers have colluded in recent years to artificially increase the price of crude oil. The Santa Fe New Mexican reported last week some of the lawsuits have been combined and allege “the companies have violated federal and state antitrust laws in a yearslong conspiracy to constrain oil production to prop up the price of crude oil and maximize profits at the expense of consumers.”
The New Mexican said defendants, including Permian operators, are Chesapeake Energy, Continental Resources, Diamondback Energy, EOG Resources, ExxonMobil, Hess Corp., Occidental Petroleum and Permian Resources. Lawsuits by companies, government entities and individual citizens claim producers have coordinated with each other and OPEC “to restrain domestic shale oil production and to artificially inflate and fix crude oil prices.” A spokesman from Occidental told the New Mexican, “We believe the claims made in this lawsuit against Occidental are baseless, and we intend to defend the company vigorously.”
U.S. District Judge Matthew Garcia set a hearing for later this month.
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