What's actually causing the price of oil to rise?

Right so I know that petrol prices are getting a bit daft. Currently a barrel of oil is something like $140, and is set to possibly reach $250 by next year.





But why? What started it all, and why cant the oil companies just stop rising the price? Is there some kind of vicious cycle or catch-22 that they're stuck in which means they cant do anything about how much their own oil costs?What's actually causing the price of oil to rise?
Well, there is valueless American dollar which drives the price up since it takes more dollars to equal euros or any other currency. There is speculation and there is price gouging driving up the price. The oil companies are making historic profits, not historic sales. This means that they are making higher margins between the cost of good sold and the sales price, also known as gouging.





Also, Bush removed the price caps in place when he came into office which allows Big Oil to charge whatever they want, and he has been increasing the strategic oil reserves which causes a tightening of supplies. It is probably something they agreed to in the secret meeting Cheney had with energy executives that he refuses to discuss or release the minutes to the public.What's actually causing the price of oil to rise?
There are many factors causing the price of oil to rise. Of course there's the supply and demand issue, and another major reason is the fact that the liberals are blocking our efforts to explore and develop our own oil reserves in the USA and offshore.


But one of the main reasons is the greedy speculators who are only in it for the quick profit motive. They buy oil futures with no intent or ability to actually receive the oil. It's just a paper transaction to gain profit. They speculate and jack up the price artificially.


We must stop this practice immediately and the price of gasoline will drop significantly.


Support your congressmen and women to support this change back to the 1996 regs which forbidded such practices.
Look, everyone will give you a different answer. Don't ask these kinds of questions unless you try someone who knows a bit about how economics work or you'll probably end with loads of junk about supply+demand going up a max of 10%/year when crude inflation has been up 360% in the last 8 years and loads of other b*llsh*t.





My basic knowledge from the newspapers and from financial reports combined with common sense tell me its mostly caused by US economy since almost all friggin oil is traded with US dollars. With the US dollar crumbling to worthlessness and people lining up to buy raw material stocks/anything that can hedge inflation, the prices go up.
In the late 1990's, scientists declared that there were no more new, untapped sources of oil. They knew where all of the oil was and that was it. Therefore, it is considered a limited resource and could be used up in 100 to 200 years. When the oil companies raise the price of oil, it conserves the oil by eliminating unnecessary driving and gives them more profits. So they are killing two birds with one stone by raising gas prices.
what's actually causing the price of oil to raise to this level pushing a barrel of crude oil through the roof also raising energy cost by 17% is plain and simple greed by the oil companies. they realize that it will take us some time to develop alternative fuel, furthermore we only have a limited amount of fossil fuel in reserve, so they are trying to make a killing generatng huge profits there is nothing we can do about it, we could consume less oil and use more fuel efficient motor vehicles, the fact are we rely to heavily on middle eastern oil, hopefully we will come up with another source of fuel and that won't happen overnight.
Probably greed, but i think the thirst for oil, running our cars is getting ever greater countries like China with their quickly expanding growth, India also is pushing up the prices.





I think oil will cause more trouble in the world in years to come than religion every body wants it every country needs it.
WE are. You, Me, Everyone ELSE- AND the tens of THOUSANDS of NEW ';oil consumers'; that are being born around the World- EVERY Day. OUR ';Demand'; for Oil- is beginning to ';over run'; the Supply. And the MORE People who want a piece of the SAME amount of ';Pie';- are gonna have to PAY more for it... And every day That ';Pie'; STAYS the same Size %26amp; there's MORE of US- who want ';their'; Share... See the Problem?! It look like we're ALL about to go on a ';Diet';... :)
we actually had a person speak about this in our class the other day, he said it had something to do with people betting about how much it would cost and go up in price and such and that had something to do with prices rising or something like that.
we did it to ourselves, by allowing our jobs to be shipped to china, so they can become wealthy, buy cars that need gas to run.
Um haven't the oil producing countries got something to do with it as well?
From what I understand its greedy oil companies...and the government wont stop it cause they all have stock in the oil companies.....
Supply and demand?
the world is running out of oil,so they have to put it up to make money basicaly
President George Bush!!


need I say more.