Blame Oil Speculators, Not Obama, For Rising Oil Prices

[Lakhota]

By Alex Seitz-Wald

But there’s little truth to claims that Obama has curbed U.S. oil production and driven up gas prices in the process. As NPR noted this morning, the number of drilling rigs in U.S. oil fields has quadrupled under Obama and domestic oil production hit an 8-year high in 2011. For the first time in 60 years, the U.S. is now a net fuel exporter.

Oil demand was actually down 4.6 percent last week over last year, while the supply of gasoline has actually increased slightly since a year ago. So why are gas prices so high? As McClatchy’s Kevin Hall explains today, there is a systemic problem: speculation.

Energy futures markets serve a legitimate role in helping producers (like oil companies) and big end users (like airlines) hedge against price volatility, but lately, they’ve been taken over by Wall Street speculators who never intend to actually use the fuel they’re betting on. As Hall reports:

Historically, financial speculators accounted for about 30 percent of oil trading in commodity markets, while producers and end users made up about 70 percent. Today it’s almost the reverse.

A McClatchy review of the latest Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates oil trading, shows that producers and merchants made up just 36 percent of all contracts traded in the week ending Feb. 14 while speculators who will never take delivery of the oil made up 64 percent.​

More: Blame Oil Speculators, Not Obama, For Rising Oil Prices | ThinkProgress

Once again, speculators behind sharply rising oil and gasoline prices | McClatchy

 

[RetiredGySgt]

By Alex Seitz-Wald

But there’s little truth to claims that Obama has curbed U.S. oil production and driven up gas prices in the process. As NPR noted this morning, the number of drilling rigs in U.S. oil fields has quadrupled under Obama and domestic oil production hit an 8-year high in 2011. For the first time in 60 years, the U.S. is now a net fuel exporter.

Oil demand was actually down 4.6 percent last week over last year, while the supply of gasoline has actually increased slightly since a year ago. So why are gas prices so high? As McClatchy’s Kevin Hall explains today, there is a systemic problem: speculation.

Energy futures markets serve a legitimate role in helping producers (like oil companies) and big end users (like airlines) hedge against price volatility, but lately, they’ve been taken over by Wall Street speculators who never intend to actually use the fuel they’re betting on. As Hall reports:

Historically, financial speculators accounted for about 30 percent of oil trading in commodity markets, while producers and end users made up about 70 percent. Today it’s almost the reverse.

A McClatchy review of the latest Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates oil trading, shows that producers and merchants made up just 36 percent of all contracts traded in the week ending Feb. 14 while speculators who will never take delivery of the oil made up 64 percent.​

More: Blame Oil Speculators, Not Obama, For Rising Oil Prices | ThinkProgress

Once again, speculators behind sharply rising oil and gasoline prices | McClatchy

You mean like you all blamed Bush when he was President and all?

 

[Lakhota]

Who is "you all"?

 

[occupied]

Under the Dodd Frank reform law the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was supposed to impose strict limits on the amount of oil that Wall Street speculators could trade in the energy futures market and they have not done it yet. Look for it's chairman to be replaced very soon.

 

[Avatar4321]

Why would I blame speculators when Iran and the Saudi's are causing it?

 

[Toro]

Speculators are not the cause of rising oil prices. The causes are a strengthening economy and tensions in the Middle East.

 

[Avatar4321]

Speculators are not the cause of rising oil prices. The causes are a strengthening economy and tensions in the Middle East.

A strengthening economy?

 

[Trajan]

By Alex Seitz-Wald

But there’s little truth to claims that Obama has curbed U.S. oil production and driven up gas prices in the process. As NPR noted this morning, the number of drilling rigs in U.S. oil fields has quadrupled under Obama and domestic oil production hit an 8-year high in 2011. For the first time in 60 years, the U.S. is now a net fuel exporter.

Oil demand was actually down 4.6 percent last week over last year, while the supply of gasoline has actually increased slightly since a year ago. So why are gas prices so high? As McClatchy’s Kevin Hall explains today, there is a systemic problem: speculation.

Energy futures markets serve a legitimate role in helping producers (like oil companies) and big end users (like airlines) hedge against price volatility, but lately, they’ve been taken over by Wall Street speculators who never intend to actually use the fuel they’re betting on. As Hall reports:

Historically, financial speculators accounted for about 30 percent of oil trading in commodity markets, while producers and end users made up about 70 percent. Today it’s almost the reverse.

A McClatchy review of the latest Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates oil trading, shows that producers and merchants made up just 36 percent of all contracts traded in the week ending Feb. 14 while speculators who will never take delivery of the oil made up 64 percent.​

More: Blame Oil Speculators, Not Obama, For Rising Oil Prices | ThinkProgress

Once again, speculators behind sharply rising oil and gasoline prices | McClatchy

that BS didn't float for boooosh so give it up.its the same for everyone harriet.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Oil is up on Middle East tension, demand in China, and some refinery shutdowns.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Natural gas prices hit a 10 year low in January.

Does Obama get credit for that, or is he only a factor when there's blame to distribute?

 

[Avatar4321]

Natural gas prices hit a 10 year low in January.

Does Obama get credit for that, or is he only a factor when there's blame to distribute?

Who here is blaming Obama?

 

[whitehall]

You could say peculators are like jackals. They don't attack a healthy animal. They prefer to take down a wounded critter. The American oil industry hasn't been healthy since democrats decided to become socialists. Speculators count on bad news not good news. If Barry Hussein had signed the pipeline bill the speculator jackals would still be crouching in their holes but the (US energy) animal is so wounded that it's easy prey.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Natural gas prices hit a 10 year low in January.

Does Obama get credit for that, or is he only a factor when there's blame to distribute?

Who here is blaming Obama?

Do you really want me to pore over every thread here on this topic and compile a list of names?

 

[KissMy]

Oil prices fell from $147 to $35 on July 14th 2008 when Bush opened up the OCS for drilling.

Offshore Areas Open for Drilling when President Obama Took Office

Offshore Areas Blocked for Drilling under President Obama’s Draft 2012-2017 Plan

Congress just did away with the key tax cut at the pump & reduced gasolines competition on January 1, 2012. That is the reason gas prices stopped falling, suddenly spiked on that date & have been rising every since. Enjoy the higher gas prices! Congress & Obama hates the poor!!!

 

[NYcarbineer]

Buy an ETF that tracks the price of oil; that will hedge your personal expenditures on the products.

 

[Avatar4321]

Natural gas prices hit a 10 year low in January.

Does Obama get credit for that, or is he only a factor when there's blame to distribute?

Who here is blaming Obama?

Do you really want me to pore over every thread here on this topic and compile a list of names?

You can't scan 12 posts, most of which were done by progressives?

I did. I dont see anyone blaming Obama.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Oil prices fell from $147 to $35 on July 14th 2008 when Bush opened up the OCS for drilling.

That chart tracks the economy's downturn.

 

[Richard-H]

You would sooner pass a camel thru the eye of a needle, than have a wingnut not blame Obama for all that is evil - both real and imagined.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Who here is blaming Obama?

Do you really want me to pore over every thread here on this topic and compile a list of names?

You can't scan 12 posts, most of which were done by progressives?

I did. I dont see anyone blaming Obama.

Is this the only thread on the topic? Is this the only place in America where this is being discussed?

 

[Lakhota]

It's a given that something always drives speculation. As the McClatchy link in the OP states:

The ostensible reason for the climb of crude prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where contracts for future delivery of oil are traded, is growing fear of a military confrontation with Iran in the Persian Gulf's Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world's oil passes.

Other factors driving up prices include last month's bankruptcy of Petroplus, a big European refiner, and a recent BP refinery fire in Washington state that's temporarily crimped gasoline supply along the West Coast; gas now costs an average of $4.04 a gallon in California.

While tension over Iran has ratcheted up over the last few months, the price of oil and gasoline has leaped far beyond conventional supply and demand variables. Financial speculators are piling into the market, torquing the Iranian fear factor into ever-higher prices.

How much of this is Obama's fault?