What is causing the price of gas to r

[lyonsd]

Prices are governed by supply & demand for the most part. Is there less supply or more demand causing the price to rise?

Are we buying less gas from those God-forsaken Arabs? Are they charging us more per barrel? Usually when the Arabs (OPEC) raises their price we hear about it on the news. I haven't heard anything about them rainsing their price.

People will say the threat and uncertainty of war is causing the price to rise. If that is so, then who is raising it? Local gas stations? The people the gas stations buy it from? The refineries? Who?

Regardless of the threat and uncertainty of war, if it's not costing the oil companies any more to fill up the local gas station's tanks, then where is the increase in price coming from?

 

[UNGN]

With the stock market down, investors are buying and selling oil futures to make money (stocks are just laying there). With venezuela off line for a month and the threat of war with Iraq, Investors feel it's a safe bet that oil will continue to go up. The speculators are betting Saddam ignites the oil fields in Iraq as he goes down. This will put a slight crimp in the worlds oil supply, but maybe just enough to keep the price at $40+ a barrel through summer.

Much like the the stock price of a company has little bearing on how much a company makes, the price of Oil doesn't have direct bearing on actual supply and demand for a while. That "While" is the length of time the investors and speculators are willing to sit on their oil.

Just like stocks in recent years, when the crash comes it will crash hard. Venezuela ramps up, Iraq goes down quick, oil drops back to $10 a barrel, speculators left in lose their shirts. It's happened many times before, and there is nothing to say it won't happen again this time.