Something tells me that average profit margin will be lower in a commodities market, which acts more like a classic supply-and-demand curve. But it might be %18 now but fall down to %0 or less in harder times.
While certainly anything is possible in the world of corporate executives, even if there were a grand conspiracy and gouging on the part of oil companies it would do nothing to alleviate “high” gasoline prices. After all even if we assume that oil companies pay nothing for their oil and eliminate all of their profit margin, %82 of $3.00 a gallon is still $2.46. And their actual share of the profits is certainly far lower.