Oil’s Puzzling Spring Surge Reignites Debate About Speculators
By Steven Mufson / The Washington Post
The run-up in oil prices that began earlier this year was not as steep as last summer’s record climb, but it was almost as mystifying.
Demand was low, the global economy was sagging, and the world’s oil consumers and producers were brimming with excess supply. Those factors ought to keep prices down, but the monthly average price of crude oil jumped $10 a barrel from February to April, another $10 in May and again in June. Gasoline prices in the United States rose 54 days in a row, and AAA called the increases through May “the largest five-month retail advance this century.”