What makes crude oil prices goes up and who is/are the culprit/s?

Answer 1

Contrary to political jargon you hear on tv, the oil market is just like any other market, and it functions according to most normal economic rules.

This means... When supply gets low, (or oil gets hard/expensive to produce), then prices go up. They cannot over charge too much, as people will stop buying as much gas, which would hurt them, they wnat you to buy gas.

Factors that influence price... would be wars, public opinion (people think there's gonna be a shortage, so they buy now instead), change in price of substitutes (ethanol, price of public transportation), change in price of items that go with gas (vehicles that use gas...), natural disasters, technology (invented a new kind of gas efficient vehicle)... and a few more situations. But basically, this applies to all markets, including the oil market.

To really understand it, read alot of business news like wallstreet or business week.

Answer 2

Crude prices always goes up because of the oil producing countries who control the production of oil so that there will be shortage. When there is lack of oil, the price goes up due to the law of supply and demand. The culprits are the oil producing countries.

Answer 3

Supply and demand. Restrict supply, or cause a disruption in supply, and the supply cannot meet the demand, and so prices go up.

OPEC nations ( a council of oil producing nations in the middle east) agree on what their output will be, and therefore can control the price. Things like the war in Iraq disrupt the production of oil, and therefore the supply becomes limited, and the price goes up as well.

Answer 4

The American Public. Simply because of the fact that during the first oil crisis in the 70's we did not force our government to develop alternitive fuel systems. Such as the hydrogen fuel cell, solar energy, hybrid electric cars. Had we have done so our demand from other countries would not be so great. The technology we are starting with now would be thirty years older and vastly improved.

Answer 5

Oil prices are based on speculative value. People predict if the value will go up or down and that's how prices fluctuate. OPEC has the greatest influence because they can set production quotas and essentially rig the price of most of the oil supply.

Answer 6

Liberal environmentalists who fight every step of the way to keep us from tapping into our domestic oil supply...example you ask? they fight to keep us from drilling in ANWR. An area that only a few hundred people have ever seen anyway is being protected so that the rest of the millions of Americans have to pay higher gas prices and keep the U.S. dependant on foreign oil.

Answer 7

supply, demand, environ--mental whack-o's who prevent america from developing her own oil supplies, greedy politicians. Primarily: Ted Kennedy who owns a huge amount of foreign oil , and oil stock and votes regularly to prevent drilling anywhere near america. GWBush is not, was not, an oilman, and he has offered the senate several options that would help, but the democrats in the senate blocked his every effort..

Answer 8

the big wigs,the little guy or the service station has no control, to me demand is a company demanding higher prices,if the little guy on the bottom of the chain tried to control the prices he would soon be out of work,supply and demand should be a moderate increase not double or more in a short period

Answer 9

No matter what is said, the oil companies have the last say in the price.

Answer 10

I think the oil producers ... (countries with lots of oil and export them)
They want to get as much profit as possible .. and don't care about others.