Oil is a publicly traded commodity. If there is unrest in an Oil producing area the threat of disruption will drive up the price per barrel, even if production isn't slowed. Oil companies will immediately raise gas prices even though it would take several months for the oil that was paid for at the increased rate to actually hit the pump. However if the price per gallon were to lower there would be no immediate lowering of the price at the pump. So a volatile oil market means big profits for oil companies even if nothing really happened as far as supply.
just like when the price of natural gas was skyrocketting, all those investors in enron are living high on the hog. as someone else stated, there are plenty of investments negatively affected by high energy prices, so I mean the oil companies.
is there a government agency that tracks and investigates oil and gas trading. edit:just have to add to be fair, that these traders are buying futures, so they are anticipating price increases. I didn't pull that $20 premium figure out of thin air, I got that from an interview with a trader. my issue is, when does this premium fall off, obviously its been there over a year now. and once the premium falls off and prices fall back to noramal, about a sixty dollar level, what is that gonna do to the industry.
