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In May 2002, the FTC announced a project to monitor wholesale and retail prices of gasoline in an effort to
identify possible anticompetitive activities and determine whether a law enforcement investigation would be
warranted. This project tracks retail gasoline prices in some 360 cities across the nation and wholesale
(terminal rack) prices in 20 major urban areas. The FTC’s Bureau of Economics staff receives daily data from
the Oil Price Information Service (OPIS), a private data collection company, and receives information weekly
from the Department of Energy’s public gasoline price hotline. An econometric model is used to determine
whether current retail and wholesale prices each week are anomalous in comparison with historical data.
The Monitoring Project alerts FTC staff to unusual changes in gasoline prices so that further inquiry can
be undertaken expeditiously. When price increases do not appear to result from market-driven causes, staff
consults with the Energy Information Administration of the Department of Energy. FTC staff also contacts the
offices of the appropriate state Attorneys General to discuss the anomaly and appropriate potential actions,
including the opening of an investigation.
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