Oil prices to be probed by US regulator CFTC

America's leading commodities regulator has launched an unprecedented investigation into possible market manipulation in the US crude oil market amid record prices which continue to cripple various parts of the global economy.

	Oil prices hit a record high of $135.14 a barrel last week

The Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC), working closely with other international regulators including the Financial Services Authority in the UK, has begun a series of detailed inquiries over concerns that energy speculators are behind the rising oil price.

In a detailed statement, the CFTC admitted for the first time that it began its investigation in December, taking what it called the "extraordinary step" of disclosing the probe "because of today's unprecedented market conditions".

The CFTC declined to discuss the specifics of the investigation, but stressed that all of its enforcement inquiries were focused on "ensuring that the markets are properly policed for manipulation and abusive practices".

Agree with you. Already demand is just so so,but ppl play it up by speculating, make thing worse.

I was looking at some tremor earthquake cause by this supa high oil px.

I believe that the $ and FED play a big role in all this.

Actually, it's a big myth that there is not enough oil in the world to satisfy actual demand. Actual demand is make up of real demand and speculative demand. Real demand go to users with real use for it while speculative demand get stored at terminals around the world until it is liquidated at a future date. That's the reason for the need in the past years to build so many oil tanking terminals around the world to store all these oil, both real and speculative.

Speculative oil demand is no different from speculative gold demand. There are more than enough gold in the world for industrial and jewellery purposes. But gold keep going up because of speculative demand and stored inside gold vaults around the world.

When speculative demand has turned into a frenzy, speculators could spin any reasons to convince themselves that future demand will be so and so - always never enough. It all ends in bubbles and bubbles all end in tears. Caveat emptor.