Higher demand, but where is the shortage. What gas stations have shut down or have closed pumps because they don't have gas? We need people to report from varoius parts of the country. I live in the upper midwest and I have not seen one gas station with lack of gas supply. Where are gas lines? Where is the gas rationing? Its not where I live.

Talking about calling the kettle black. A speculator is telling us that oil prices are skyrocketing because there is a supply shortage and OPEC should have increased production 2 years ago. Really, just where is that supply shortage? In New York? In California? Can the speculator be a bit more specific? Just because the demand for oil from other countries may have risen doesn't mean that their is a supply shortage. Again, this guy is protecting his rear for being part of the problem of driving up oil prices.

Here in New England,Boston and Suburbs there is no gas shortage or any thing that resembles a gas line.Yet the price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas is 4.05 a gallon and rising.Thats all everyone is talking about.The trick down effect is taking its toll on business of every nature here,in the cost of supplies and transportation costs,etc.Just paid over 1,000 dollars to fill my oil tank for the summer.A few years ago,I could heat the whole house for almost a full season for that.God help us!Something has got to give.

This mostly rhetoric i'd like to see real help in this next OPEC meeting until i actually see results i'm a comfirmed sceptic.The market bears all and i concede that it's all accross the board,.it's supply and demand. Wall street specualtions and greed. COME ON OPEC ! do the right thing,.help the entire oil hungry nations get oil back down to reality and save economic crisis around the world. We will be waiting for real results HOPEFULLY FRUITFULL DISCUSSIONS this meeting in June>!

Nobody knows if Saudi Arabia can increase production. The odds are, they really can't. Iran has to be loving our misery. So is Venezuela.

Texas used to be the Saudi Arabia of America. The stuff, oil, really does dwindle down to less production.

As 100s of millions of people in the rest of the world get a little richer because of globalization, they each want to drive a little bit more. It does not freak them out that they are paying way more for gasoline than Americans as they aren't driving as far or as often. There is not enough capacity to fuel that phenomena unless Americans start driving a great deal less.

So ultimately, the speculator is right. Looking for shortages here in the United States is not going to prove much. If there actually were shortages at the pumps in the United States, the price would not be $4.05 a gallon, it would $16.20 a gallon.

OPEC you better heed and take notice .!Millions of people around the world want you to help them out of this oil crisis.You are also part of the problem what you do will determine what other oil producing nations decide to do to help.Millions will remember you when many more vehicles convert to hybrid and smaller vehicles and they no longer need near as much oil.The world is going to rise up to a steam building protest,.leading to a revolution! Better help and soon !

There appears to be a "new world order", a new power that is flexing its financial control muscles, and demonstrating its influence world wide.

Saudi Arabia, the home country of Ben Laden, the country of most of the 9-11 terrorists, now apparently has the ability to substantially impact the economies of the majoriity of the other countries in the world . . . that is some heady stuff economically and politically, isn't it?

Saudi Arabia, the long time "friends" of the Bush family; the "friends" who recently turned down George Bush's requests to increase production. Is it true that the Saudis recently helped to bailout the Bush family's oil company from going bankrupt???

Yes, a new world order is emerging from all of this. Is it possible that Bush's actions against Iraq were also done in an attempt to help preserve the Saudi Royal family from the radical extremists who have been trying to depose them?

What if the USA were to withdraw our support from the Saudi royal family; how long would it take the extremists to overthrow them? There appears to be a delicate balance of power in all of this.

The short term answer is to start more drilling. We have lots of oil around the U.S. if allowed to drill. The long term answer is government investment in different technology. We need to get away from oil.
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well thanks for stopping iraq from invading the saudi's after kwait how about we raise the price of oil fron 20 to 150 a barrel as thanks for the stability in the middle east

Regretably we have no one to blame but ourselves. In 1974 when there actually was a shortage of oil (politically created) I remember all the talk about never letting this happen again.

So we have done nothing to remedy this situation for nearly 35 years, which was plenty of time to build safe nuclear plants (like France which gets 80% of it's electricity from nuclear), demand more fuel efficient vehicles, or explore other energy saving options. It all boils down to our own inaction.

It's not OPEC's fault. We are our own worst enemy.

there is no shortages in the oil supply...only people who buy and sell at the highest prices possible who care little about the impact it's having...actually some are very happy about the impact it's having and are delighted to bring down the industrialized countries of the west. If the U.S. Govt. would just get off their respective asses and tell all the environmentalists to go to hell and started drilling offshore and in Alaska we would have all the oil we need and wouldn't have to import any...and more refineries need to be built...not years in the future....NOW!!! We have billions of barrels of oil off the shores of this country on the East coast, West coast, and in the gulf.....lets go get it.

You cannot drill your way out of this. Oil Companies would be obligated to their shareholder to sell the oil at the highest market price. That is how America works.

The price is determined by a global market. That market has 100s of millions of customers, many of them new, all of them getting wealthier, who want to drive more, and so far they are adding miles every month.

Speculators are looking at proven reserves and projected reserves, and they are correctly determining that a commodity that is ever more difficult to find, and ever more expensive to extract, and which has rapidly increasing demand, is worth far more than it has been selling for over the last 34 years. And they're right. In other words, the oil in ANWR and the outer shelf, is already a part of the global market price.

That the Republican morons you've been electing to office have been telling you otherwise, is your problem. You elected them.