Oil prices have continued to climb today, and are currently (10:30 a.m.) trading up $0.83 to $83.71. Earlier in the session, it had looked as though profit taking would drive prices lower, but that sell off was only momentary and supply concerns along with weakness in the U.S. dollar have once again led to price gains. Update: by the end of the day, oil had reversed again to close at $81.66.

There are several factors that are leading to the recent run up in oil prices. I have looked at these a few times over the past few days, and they remain the same; upcoming winter heating months, geo-politcal unrest in the Middle East, and the looming threat of disruptions related to the hurricane season. All of these have one thing in common -- supply / demand concerns. The market will react quickly and emotionally to any one of these factors, and even more strongly should more than one start to play out at the same time.

Yesterday, I mentioned the increasing tension between Iran and the West, with Iran now claiming the nuclear issue to be a "closed case" and that it will defy any UN sanctions imposed on it. This is happening at the same time that the United States is toughening its stance against the Middle Eastern country and calling for other nations around the world to do the same in its attempt to put an end to the ruling party's "reign of terror."

Oil prices have once again moved higher today, spurred on by government data that showed larger than expected declines in inventories last week. Prices moved up as high as $82.51, but have since pulled back slightly to $81.95, up $0.44 on the day.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported earlier today that last week U.S. crude stocks fell by 3.8 million barrels, which was was almost double what analysts had been expecting to see. Prices are now up around 33% since the start of the year, and after trying to guess for so long if we would see $80 oil, we are now left wondering how quickly we are going to be seeing prices head up to $85 a barrel. My guess is that we will be there within a week.

OPEC members have to be loving the recent price jump. The oil cartel did save a little face last week when it decided to raise its output by 500,000 barrels a day, but many read through that decision as nothing more than empty words promising too little, too late. It is true that even before OPEC decided to lift its quota that the group was already producing above its prior quota levels, so many were left wondering what impact last week's decision would have on the market. Typically you would expect such a decision to result in lower prices, but all it accomplished was pushing prices even higher.