I certainly can't say with any certainty how much impact rank speculation has on the price of oil.  It does, however, strain credulity that any time oil goes up at all, the talking heads can talk about nothing but speculation, 'fear premium', geopolitical risks...anything except maybe oil is justified in becoming dearer.  This apparently never happens, at least not until the new price level is established for four or five months.  This sort of thing does not happen with any other commodity.  It's as if oil is the only commodity that exists in anything less then a perfect market or is somehow the only game in town for big swinging dicks to make a buck off of