Is it speculation?
Last summer I had a chat with a customer who operates a large custom farming operation. As one can imagine, they require large amounts of diesel fuel just to operate their business. So last summer they installed large underground tanks to store a reserve of fuel for the season. IN addition they started buying oil futures.
I imagine that many other organizations world wide are in similar situations. They are simply trying to hedge a business risk, not make a big profit off oil.
Are they speculators? There is no doubt the such actions have had a cumulative impact on the price of oil.
