2008 Oil Price Spike

What caused the huge spike in prices for Oil last summer?
Asked my Dad, a die hard Liberal, and he said "Oil companies are greedy". Figured that might be a bit biased.
Tried Google. Every different site had a different person/people to blame. Fun Bias.
SouthPerry is my last hope.

Hurricanes. And a war I believe.

Why that would be George Dubbya Bush's fault.

storms, wars, fields of oil refineries being destroyed, and the cost to transport (then) diminishing quantities of oil, all played a factor.

Hurricanes. And a war I believe.

This.
An oil pipe got damaged in Louisiana/Texas, can't remember where. Most of the South had an oil shortage for a lil bit. Gas was at like, $5-ish here for a short, short time.

This.
An oil pipe got damaged in Louisiana/Texas, can't remember where. Most of the South had an oil shortage for a lil bit. Gas was at like, $5-ish here for a short, short time.

A Hurricane hits Texas.... and Europe pays twice as much for gas as before?

A Hurricane hits Texas.... and Europe pays twice as much for gas as before?

*shrug*
I'm telling you why gas was expensive in the United States, I have no clue why gas in Europe would become more expensive.
It's simple economics for why the gas was so expensive. Less supply

For prices to double, supply would have to half. I was under the impression America didn't export half the world's oil supplies.

For prices to double, supply would have to half. I was under the impression America didn't export half the world's oil supplies.

It doesn't, obviously. Like I said, I have no idea why Europe's gas prices went up so high, but they were ~$4 here before they went up.

Most countries link their prices to OPEC, even ones that don't need to (e.g. Australia).
A lot of the oil was being bought and resold many times before it made it to consumers adding to the overall price. Add to that factors like the War in Iraq (OPEC related), storms, etc. All these add to prices jumping.

I did hear sometime ago OPEC (no wonder why opeth sounds so bad) agreed to slow production because they didnt want the price going too low.

Oh and oil speculation.

Oh and oil speculation.

How does this sky rocket the price?

Gas is way below 2 dollars per gallon around here.

How does this sky rocket the price?

Im not sure but I believe if people think a stock in something is "hot" or going to increase people start to buy more of it. When more is invested in a company or a product the price starts to increase. So you can say people started buying and buying, I remember watching on MSNBC people speculated that oil was going to be in the 200's, it never did. Something triggered a mass sell out and then we had the economic crash which lowered oil prices. Oil is traded in similiar ways like a stock ya know.

I think the crash is in part caused by a slackening of demand after the 2008 Olympics ended.