If there's a problem my money is on speculators in the futures market who are skilled at panicing tight markets or markets where the fundamentals are moving strongly and they know hoe to exaggerate them. This will be some George Soros or Paul Tudor Jones kind of guy who may not know oil from water but knows futures markets, squeezing shorts, gunning stop losses and so on. I believe the refiners, particularly the big names, and the names you know, are far away from that. Even farther away is some slow witted distributor operating on a shoestring with his eight trucks hauling gasoline to retail stations. But he at least has enough sense not to expose himself to big price swings, and while he may be a little greedy here and there, you are talking about a penny or two a gallon.
But the big thing to come back to is spreads against the futures market. There are lots of markets. Start with the big world markets - New York, Rotterdam and so on. Then look at regional markets, the big pipeline terminals and such. Then look at local terminals, And finally retail stations. If there is something funny you'll see it somehow. Maybe prices of gasoline go nuts in Rotterdam and spread to New York. Maybe all pipeline terminals west of the Rockies start shooting up. If you have a theory you have to see some driver. "Big Oil" doesn't control ****. The world financial are in control. So you have to contend those markets are being manipulated or you have to contend the local markets are out of sync with the world financial markets. To argue that distributors in Alabama are colluding and that's why the prices in Rotterdam and Singapore, which are in line with Alabama, are up is a loony position. New York and Rotterdam are the drivers, not the guy in alabama with eight trucks or the refinery in Alabama in collusion with refineries all over the US. I just don't see it.
Here's the conspiracy: People in China and India are conspiring with their neighbors to start riding cars instead of bicycles.