Just Shoot Me In The Gas Tank

Misery Returns to the Gas Pumps as Oil Shoots Above US$75 a Barrel
Don't look now, but crude oil prices have quietly surged up to US$75 per barrel again, for the first time in nearly a year. Oil is fast closing in on fresh record highs.
The catalyst this time around is "renewed unrest in Nigeria's delta oil producing region." One of the world's largest and yet most unstable oil fields. No news there. After all the Middle East isn't exactly a model of stability either. And let's not even talk about Venezuela.
In Nigeria, violence by militant groups has cut the country's oil output by at least 25%. Recently Royal Dutch Shell, Nigeria's largest foreign oil producer, announced that it would not restart its oil production in Nigeria for the rest of this year, due to the ongoing violence.
In the Middle East, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) refuses to raise its output quotas, which is helping to boost prices even more.
OPEC, the oil cartel that controls about 43% of global oil production, refuses to even contemplate raising output before a meeting scheduled for September. Clearly this is just a policy stance intended to push prices even higher in the meantime.
Surging demand also plays a key role here. Gasoline inventories in the U.S. have been falling, due to strong summer demand during our peak driving season. Pump prices that have been persistently north of US$3 per gallon are apparently not keeping cars in garages this summer.
Also, airline travel is booming again, just ask anyone who has recently flown a jam-packed trans-Atlantic flight (including yours truly). Or ask anyone who's been bumped recently from an overbooked domestic flight.
Last week U.S. refineries pushed utilization rates past 90% to crank out the highest level of gasoline since at least 1982, when record keeping began. Refineries running flat-out like this are a big drain on U.S. petroleum reserves, which also pushes energy markets higher. And the 2007 Atlantic Hurricane season hasn't even turned ugly yet.
The renewed uptrend in crude is not a big surprise to me. The bull market in energy seems like it has much more upside in my view. It's a long-term secular trend that's not about to end anytime soon.