How much longer can we tolerate this price-gouging racket of an energy sector? 

We are all footing the bill of a crooked system that drains our bank balances and heats the planet, writes Damian Carrington

Countries such as Saudi Arabia can produce a barrel of oil for a few dollars, sell it for $100 and still talk about cutting production.

Today’s soaring energy costs are frightening. But the deeper truth, often overlooked, is even more shocking. The global oil and regional gas markets are anything but — they are rackets, a profiteer’s paradise. If they operated in a single legal jurisdiction, they would have long been deemed illegally rigged.

The excess, unearned profits of the oil and gas industry are astronomical, recently revealed as $3bn every day for the past 50 years. That’s $1tr a year, on average, from the pockets of you and me into the bank vaults of dictators and big oil. It may be the biggest shakedown in history.