The best I can tell from the story is that they think somebody might be “painting the tape” in thin end-of-day trading. I’d have to bet that that eventually points to speculators instead of producers and end users, as there are almost certainly many more speculators, and of course they were the ones who ran it to $140 a couple of years ago.
Oops, forgot the classic threads fingering speculators:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2290640/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2854450/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2483774/posts
Thwy were also the ones who got caught holding 140 dollar a barrel oil when the price crashed. How would like to have been one of those that had a tanker full of 140 dollar oil only to have the price crash below a 100 before you could get it to port. Thats a very risky business.