If oil companies are simply jacking up prices to pad their profits, why are they so shitty at it?

Historically, oil company profit margins average around 6-8% (depending on how you measure).

Their current profit margins in 2022? 6.2%.

Just about average.

I should note this 6.2% is down from 2021, where profit margins were about 12%. So, oil companies are so incompetent that they are raising prices out of greed, but earning less profit per dollar.

Either oil companies are so stupid that they cannot increase the profits even by raising prices, or price changes depend on something other than greed.

Too bad we don't have a vast empirical literature that develops a theory of price formation.

But…, but…, according to Robert Reich oil corporations are raking in record profits while blaming inflation for their high prices! And Robert Reich has a Doctorate!