Mark Finley, BP America's general manager of global energy markets and US economics, said in an e-mail reply to a question from CNBC that "oil prices are primarily driven by oil market supply and demand fundamentals, rather than movements in the dollar—as is evident by the recent decline coming amid weak global demand and strong growth in US production."
Some analysts already see a shift underway in the traditional relationship between crude and the dollar. In a March research report, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said with the U.S.'s growing energy independence was causing the negative correlation between the dollar and oil to ease.
"If you're producing more and more here and you're doing exporting, the strong dollar effect is reduced quite a bit," said Richard Hastings, a macro strategist at Global Hunter Securities. "You could look it as a hedge or a buffer…but it avoids the import/export currency effect that brings into focus the stronger dollar."
So now you agree the dollar is growing stronger and not losing value as you first stated?