financial players have seized control of the oil markets

Thx to medienanalyse-international.de

Well, that is also true, but does it change the equation so much that we see oil prices up 60 percent in less than six months? Obviously not. I’ve been in this business for 30 years, and I can tell you, I try to justify $60 oil and I can’t find any plausible reason to think that oil prices should be a dollar above $60, let alone above $90 or $100.
(...)
I truly believe that major investment banks and a large number of very high-risk-taking financial players have seized control of the oil markets, especially in the last six months. During that time, oil prices moved in one direction and market fundamentals really moved sideways or even lowered. Demand has slowed down significantly. We have seen all kinds of indications that we are reaching a breaking point here. We’ve seen what happened to gasoline margins on the West Coast; they’ve dropped to an almost 18-year low. All this is an indication that something is wrong with the system, that supply and demand fundamentals do not justify the current price. But if the current price is based on speculation, there is no limit to how high oil prices can go. Basically, as long as there is somebody willing to bid higher, the price of the commodity will move higher.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4045

Important read.

Ahh, the smell of diesel fumes in the morning really gets me going.

speculation -- speculation -- speculation.