No End in Sight for Soaring Oil Prices

A year ago, oil cost $36 per barrel. At the time, analysts said the world’s supply-demand scenario justified $30 oil, but speculative buyers of crude were tacking on a war premium of $6 per barrel due to uncertainty in Iraq.

As crude prices ticked up, crossing $40 per barrel and then hitting $50 nine months ago, the so-called “fear factor” premium mushroomed.

It has been blamed on everything from pipeline sabotage in Iraq and strikes in Nigeria to re-nationalization of the energy industries in Russia and Venezuela and the peak oil theory that the world is running out of crude.
Houston Chronicle