[dirtboy]

I am hard pressed to understand why a fire involving natural gas would affect the price of oil.

I was hard-pressed to understand how a refinery explosion at a rather small refinery in West Texas (.4 percent of US output) would cause the price of oil to rise. IMO speculators are driving commodities bonkers.

[Dog Gone]

The speculators clearly are running the market.

A refinery shutdown reduces the need to buy crude. You don’t buy it if you can’t use it because your dang refinery is all blowed up.

That puts more crude on the world market looking for a refinery.

Should lower the price of oil.

It hasn’t worked out the way recently, which means that market forces really aren’t totally driving this thing. There are apparently too few traders in this market.

That’s just my guess.

[bjs1779]

I was hard-pressed to understand how a refinery explosion at a rather small refinery in West Texas (.4 percent of US output) would cause the price of oil to rise. IMO speculators are driving commodities bonkers.

Not possible. Crude oil doesn't go up at the refineries. Look at the charts. This is gossip stuff.