Would government enforced price caps on gasoline bankrupt oil companies?

Would price caps on oil and gas force oil companies out of business or make them find cheaper and more efficient methods of refining fuel ?
Answer:
Oil companies make obscene profits (I'm a shareholder and even I think the profits are too high) but I don't know that price caps are the answer either. The oil companies made more in profits last year than some countries have in their entire budget.

Normally I am against restrictive regulations on business because more often than not they end up screwing things up. However, I think the oil companies are abusing their power at this point and need to be reined in a bit. Perhaps you could structure it like the insurance companies where they are only allowed a certain percentage profit. You would want to create a structure that encouraged investment and innovation without crushing the companies ability to make a profit.

Its a truly hard question without any good answers that I have seen so far. A big part of the problem is the elected representatives are in part owned by the oil companies. Another argument for campaign finance reform and term limits.

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check out gas caps that were tried in California..the gas caps ended up costing the Californians more money then the rest of the USA...even Hawaii..so this government regulation is just another failure

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The oil companies have made hundreds of billions of dollars in profits each year for the past few years. I doubt a price cap would do anything to harm them. In some states there are price caps that go into effect during emergencies.

Bottom line is, they would simply find a way to scrimp somewhere else to make profits or wait until another day to jam us up and get it all back..

In 1971 Nixon entered a Presidential Order called the Wage and Price Freeze of 1971 which was intended to last 3 months but effectively ran almost 3 years. The end result was that once the freeze ended, prices shot up into double digit inflation.