No conspiracy here. That demand has dropped, in the developed countries, has been widely reported. If that has translated to a worldwide reduction in demand then that, from all indications, is a temporary phenomenon and the markets look to the future. It's still about supply/demand.
Doesn’t matter if it was not in this country or some other. The price of crude is global. Since the futures market can be viewed as part of the pricing mechanism I suppose one could argue that "everything" is supply and demand. But that is a bit of a stretch as one would be dismissing speculation entirely. And since no other factors changed on the scale of the change in the price during those two weeks (17%), the only factor left that did change that much is the speculative market. It was not a corresponding change in the actual inventory.