[canuck_conservative]

Without oil speculators buying contracts, there will be a shortage of oil. The price may drop, but it may not be available.

No - if there's no speculators, then the futures market is left with just producers (the sellers) and corporate buyers - and guess what, that exactly what the futures market was originally designed for! The market works just fine without speculators, probably even better than with them around to distort prices.

It was the speculators who drove up the price of oil last summer to obscene levels, and all of us regular working people paid the price for it, making them rich. Let those bastards be the ones to suffer a bit this summer.

[Toddsterpatriot]

No - if there's no speculators, then the futures market is left with just producers (the sellers) and corporate buyers - and guess what, that exactly what the futures market was originally designed for!

How wide would the spreads be? How deep would the markets be?

The market works just fine without speculators, probably even better than with them around to distort prices.

Spoken like someone with no experience in markets.

It was the speculators who drove up the price of oil last summer to obscene levels

Because speculators only buy and never sell? Because their buys make the price rise while their sells leave the price unchanged?