Probe of State’s Oil Is Sought

State Controller Steve Westly on Tuesday called for a congressional investigation into what he said were unexplained anomalies in the prices for California-produced crude oil in recent years that have sharply reduced both state and federal oil-lease royalty income.

“California receives less revenue per barrel for its oil” while consumers here pay “more per gallon [of gasoline] than anywhere in the nation,” Westly said in a statement.

The controller said the crude oil produced in California -- the heavy variety from the San Joaquin Valley and elsewhere -- was selling for an unusually low price compared with the price for the U.S. benchmark crude known as West Texas Intermediate.

Westly said an outside consulting firm couldn’t pinpoint a plausible explanation for the growing gap between California crude oil prices and those elsewhere in the country. He suggested that oil companies might be keeping the price of California oil artificially low to reduce the royalty fees the companies pay to the state for the right to extract oil from public lands.

The state expects to collect $160 million in oil royalty revenue in the 2004-05 fiscal year, according to the Lands Commission.

Joe Sparano, president of the industry trade group Western States Petroleum Assn., said he hadn’t reviewed the issue raised by Westly and couldn’t comment on it.

A call to ChevronTexaco Corp., one of California’s largest oil producers, was not returned Tuesday.