re: Oil prices past 10 years graph question.

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The percentage of people in the oilfield with those are very low.

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Correct - perhaps 3% of people in the oilfield have truck nuts. However, about 97% of people with truck nuts work in the oilfield.

It is kind of like saying very, very few Muslims are terrorist, but nearly 100% of terrorist are Muslims.

Blaming it on speculators doesn't have much to do with the spot price of oil.

Here is a pretty comprehensive explanation:

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Even seemingly small shocks may have large effects. Can they help explain the spike in oil prices in the first half of 2008? It was definitely a time of significant upheavals, some with the potential for sustained disruption of supplies. In February 2008 Venezuela cut off oil sales to ExxonMobil during a legal battle over nationalization of the company’s properties there. Production from Iraqi oil fields, of course, had still not recovered from wartime damage, and in late March saboteurs blew up the two main oil export pipelines in the south—cutting about 300,000 barrels per day from Iraqi exports. On April 25, Nigerian union workers went out on strike, causing ExxonMobil to shut in production of 780,000 barrels per day from three fields. Two days later, on April 27, Scottish oil workers walked off the job, leading to closure of the North Forties pipeline that carries about half of the United Kingdom’s North Sea oil production. As of May 1, about 1.36 million barrels per day of Nigerian production was shut in due to a combination of militant attacks on oil facilities, sabotage, and labor strife. At the same time, it was reported that Mexican oil exports (tenth largest in the world) had fallen sharply in April due to rapid decline in the country’s massive Cantarell oil field. On June 19, militant attacks in Nigeria caused Shell to shut in an additional 225,000 barrels per day. On June 20, just days before the price of oil reached its historic peak, Nigerian protesters blew up a pipeline that forced Chevron to shut in 125,000 barrels per day. Each of these events clearly registered in the spot market. It is not implausible to believe that, arriving in quick succession, they contributed heavily to the rapid acceleration in the spot price of oil.

Although the rising price of trend of 2004 to 2008 is consistent with changes in market fundamentals—surging demand and falling supply—the spectacular ascent especially in the first half of 2008 created widespread suspicion that “speculators” were responsible. But neither hedging nor speculation in the futures market exerts any significant effect on current (spot) oil prices. There are two main reasons: (1) due to the law of one price, the futures price must converge to the spot price as the expiration date draws near, and (2) virtually all futures contracts are settled for cash, which means that every futures contract purchased by a trader is subsequently sold by that same trader before the contract expires. Buying pressure is offset by selling pressure and no oil ever changes hands.

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Definitely not supply and demand

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100% incorrect. The price spiked on high demand and limited capacity (outside of the OPEC cartel). Obama and the democrats said we couldn't drill our way out of the shortage and they were dead wrong. Domestic producers substantially increased production, mosty through fracking, and Saudi lost market share. Saudi has kept their foot on the production throttle the regain their share and now the world is awash with more oil than it needs. It is exactly, supply and demand.

I just have regular nuts.

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what the hell caused the price to rise so damn high in the first place?

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The proliferation of the F-250 with the extra 400 pound Yeti coolers on the bed of the truck.

Another fricking moronic comment.

So you are a fan of the trees. Which by your dumbass apology means that every tree fan is a moron like you.

No hijack,

You been hitting the ball at all?
I haven't played a round in weeks, it killing me.

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Taxes,

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Please show where excise taxes have gone up to the point where they would offset the reduced price of crude

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and it probably cost more to refine now than it did then

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Based on what?

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The crude price doesn't linearly correlate with the price at the pump.

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Not completely but it's probably the strongest correlation out of all of the variables.