Fear and speculators driving oil prices too high, says BP chief

[spindrifter]

Terry Macalister
Wednesday April 26, 2006
The Guardian

Britain's top oil man, John Browne, warned yesterday that fear was driving the price of crude to artificially high levels, with untold consequences for the global economy.
The BP chief executive said turbulence in Iran, Iraq and Nigeria was leading to continual speculation about oil shortages and there were "all sorts of things that suggest it is getting worse".

Higher oil prices helped BP produce underlying profits of $5.3bn (£3bn) in the first quarter - up 7% - on sales of $67bn, but Lord Browne said global supply and demand for oil was moving towards balance. "I was at Doha at the weekend. Most (energy) people are not happy that the price of oil is so high because it is so unexpected and no one is quite clear what the impact will be," he said.

Other BP executives hinted that hedge funds and other speculators were partly responsible for the current record levels of $73 a barrel. Vivienne Cox, vice-president of supply and trading, said there had been a massive increase in the number of financial institutions trading in the oil markets. "Commodities have become a class of investment, which was not the case five years ago," she said.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,,1761502,00.html

++++++++++++++++++
Is Carlyle involved in any of the oil speculation?

Check out the interesting photo that is planted in the middle of the page...uh :wtf:

[acmavm]

1. It's always (insert name here), never the oil companies that are driving

up the prices. Oh hell no.