New York (Platts)--11Mar2008

The heads of the five major oil companies will be invited to testify on
April 1 before the House Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming,
committee Chairman Edward Markey said Tuesday.

"The American people deserve answers from Big Oil," Markey said in a
statement. He said he would grill them about record profits and their
opposition to tax rollbacks on the industry that would go toward
commercializing renewable energy.

The committee has subpoena power despite not having legislative
authority.

"Americans are not going to find the answers at the bottom of a gas tank,
so we will seek to bring the CEOs of these companies to Congress and to the
American people," he said. The companies to be asked to testify include Shell,
ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, BP, and Chevron.

The front-month crude oil contract on NYMEX settled Tuesday at
$108.75/barrel, a record, after recording an all-time high earlier in the
session of $109.05/b.

--Alexander Duncan, alexander_duncan@platts.com