In the modern world anyway. The days of Rockerfeller are way gone and the "seven sisters" are a shadow of their former selves.

Multinational oil companies are mere pawns in the game and wither or flourish based on the world spot market in oil. The same companies you accuse of rampant profiteering today were being driven bankrupt five years ago - over 1 million workers have been shed from the US domestic oil industry in the last decade or so - there's so few people left, most companies are struggling to exploit the opportunities brought by new high oil prices.

To some degree, National Oil Companies have some say in how much oil a particular country produces but even OPEC is pretty impotent at forcing prices.

Everyone is pumping as fast as they can and beginning to put money back into new production, but the price remains obstinately high due to a combination of high world demand (China) and security issues.

If Bin Laden had wanted to do maximum economic damage to the USA, he would have crashed a half-dozen airliners into oil refineries in Texas and Louisiana. That would have cut 25% of the gasoline supply from the USA for 3 years.