I'm a little torn on this one.
One one hand, I have a hard time sympathizing with the oil companies. They are enjoying record profits (yeah I know the finance work behind it, the average layman doesn't though) and they sure don't seem interested in exploring other sources of energy, even renewable ones like biodiesel or Ethanol. They seem pretty content with just pumping the oil out of the desert all the while they know that petrolium products have a largely inelastic demand.
On the other hand, if the consumer was really that displeased with the prices they would make more of an effort to cut back, perhaps selling their big pickups and SUV's in favor of something more economical, possibly demanding more small cars and diesels.
