Who's in control of the oil prices?

My dad says that the people in the middle east are but am saying bush and the oil companys are in charge can we get a little help?Who's in control of the oil prices?
Ultimately the price is determined by Oil companies. They can manipulate supplies. People say supply and demand live in a fantasy world.


First, OPEC nations do not release the amount of supply they have above ground ready to ship.


Second, They never release the amount of oil being brought into the country, only the amount in the countries supply. If the supply drops the price rises, however they don't indicate how much was brought into the country. It is very easy to not bring millions of oil into the country. So it appears the supply drops.


Third, FEAR. '; THE WORLD IS RUNNING OUT OF OIL'; scares people and causes speculators to jack up the price. There is no way to tell how much oil is left in the world accurately.





Here is something to think about: automobile companies have kept the money flowing to oil companies for years. The big three have been hurting financially for years. If Oil companies raise their profits they could bail out the automobile companies. I think they got the ball rolling, however the housing crash caught them off guard and it proceeded to dramatically hurt the economy more than they expected.Who's in control of the oil prices?
Well you are both right, but you are only half right. Bush has very little if anything to do with the price of oil. The middle eastern businesses where the raw oil is extracted obviously sell their product for money, the refineries add a cost to the oil and when the gas companies purchase the fuel they obviously are marking it up as well. There are some However, the extremely high prices of oil are most due to an increase in speculation in oil futures. Basically investors are being really, really active and skewing the prices.
Neither, however, by limiting supply whoever does so can indeed drive the prices up, just as increasing the supply will drive it down. In the meantime there are other various ways that the prices are temporarily affected, but, no one individual controls it.





If you say Bush and the Oil Companies control the price, you are much more wrong than your father, because those entities actually have the least effect.
Most of the crude oil we import comes from Canada, Africa, and Venezuela; we get about none from the Middle East. Most of that goes to Europe and Asia. Note that you'll pay as much for a barrel of oil from Oklahoma as from Kuwait: the price is pretty much the same all over.





Oil is expensive because people are desperate for the stuff and will pay these prices for it. That's really all it is. While there is a certain amount of speculation going on, there's little evidence that this has affected the prices more than a few percent one way or another. Mostly it's just a matter of very high demand and a limited supply.
You are. And me. And the people of China. The Russian government. OPEC.





Every person that uses oil causes the price to go up a little bit. Every new source of oil that is utilized causes the price to go down a little bit.





That's called Supply and Demand. Do high schools even teach basic economics anymore?
Not George Bush, that's for sure. Why do people think that he controls the prices? The media wants you to think that. The media also made McCain and Obama's name known, even though neither of them should be president. Obama sure doesn't have enough experience
The market's and supply and demand are


the sooner we rid ourselves of oil as an energy source the sooner we're going to be on the road to recovery
Criminal speculators who use scare tactics to raise the value of the oil shares they buy. Bush owns lots of oil so has done nothin to limit the price
the Bush and the oil companies are very close friends to the Saudi's king and their family as well as the middle east oil companies. They steal from their people and Bush steals forom us
Like chappeye7 said, oil speculators.
Oil Speculators