High oil and gas prices, a sign of market manipulation?

By Bill Larson | July 26, 2006 |

$55,000 per minute or $7.27 billion. That what the profits for oil giant BP in their second quarter breaks down to. Profits for BP are up over 30% from last year, a record high for them in any single quarter.

In Kuwait, government financial assets have reached $166 billion, mostly due to the their record oil profits. So, they have issued plans to give each citizen of the country a gift, of approximately $690 US dollars each. Kuwait has had a surplus for each of the past seven fiscal years of more than 50 billion dollars a year. They are also headed for record revenues for this year as well.

This is unnatural for a high-volume low-price commodity that is expensive to store and, again, indicates no shortage of physical crude. Furthermore, crude and oil product inventories in the US and for the OECD as a whole remain at healthy levels. – Platts Energy Economist Newsletter Highlight

These high prices are not the result of a supply or a production shortage. So that’s rules out supply and demand driving these prices.

It costs no more today, than it did 10 years ago for the oil companies to produce a barrel of oil. The only thing that has changed, is the price they are selling it for.

I have a simple question, “Could these high oil prices be the result of a criminal Enron type manipulation of the oil futures markets”. There is ample motivation for someone to engage in such an endeavor. The next time you have to fill up your gas tank, think about it.

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