Well, I wouldn't deny the part of speculators and commodity traders on both oil and food stuff shortages.
That's not the problem. They just play on the supply and demand balance. We are led to believe 'commodity traders' control the price in the real world (i.e. where people buy with real money, and load real stock into a truck or warehouse), but they do not.
These people trade in fiction: i.e. 'futures' and 'derivatives', and the turnover (or 'market') they have created is more than 10 times bigger than all the world's GDP combined. Now we've bailed out their gambling debts and paying for it by having our tax money used to pay interest, while public health & services get slashed and inflation starts to kill.
We are led to believe 'speculators' mess up exchange rates, but they don't: it's mafia organisations such as the IMF, Goldman-Sachs, etc...
But both oil and land + fertilizers + water are all finite resources
The point is that they don't have to be, artificial shortage has been engineered. That's also why we are taught at school that oil comes from old trees and dinosaurs
That's why Monsanto is allowed to bring disease in the food chain ('GM'), which at the same time encourages farmers to use even more round-up. It's like we all forgot about DDT and agent orange. Neat.
Meanwhile, we are now busy reducing the amount of CO2 available for plant life. And according to mainstream media: in Fukushima, CO2 emissions/targets are apparently more important than all the different kinds of radiation and radioactive particles
all of which are under huge pressure. Yes, major spikes are probably caused by speculation and 'incidents' but the trend is upwards and oil is not like to go back to $20 a barrel anytime soon.
You are right, but the reason is artificial shortage, not supply/demand. Ordinary people pay the price, even though their consumption/waste is TINY compared to industries like container ships & the perpetual war machine.
Also the scale of incidents is now much bigger:
#1 the whole of the Gulf of Mexico is now poisoned with corexit (to 'clean up the oil'), on top of that this is sending poisonous (corexit again) rain down on the south of the USA and people are still dying every day from that junk. Meanwhile the president wants to you believe that it's safe to swim in the gulf and eat the seafood...
#2 The problem with nuke plants in Japan is not limited to reactors & pools 1-4 at Fukushima: reactors 5& 6 and more pools are in trouble too AND there's 2 more plants running out of control! This is much worse than Chernobyl, and that single reactor took the labour of half a million (yes 500,000 !) people to 'control' (the sarcophagus is breaking and water is getting in & out). The Japanese reactors have the potential of poisoning not only our air, but the whole of the Pacific too.
So the good news is that the price of gas/fuel/energy is the least of your problems 
And silly businesses are still sticking religiously to JIT with no inventories and constant transporting of parts...
Yes, the plan is working great. Everyone just went along with shifting production to China and other off-shoring, not keeping stock (that includes wheat & other food reserves) and forgetting about self-sufficiency. Now we don't have a choice.
Enjoy starving to death Comrade, just like the Ukrainians! That's assuming cancer doesn't get us first, because public healthcare has always been subjected to artificial scarcity, but now they will really start to let the 'useless eaters' die. It all fits together
Theres been 'bout a 15c increase because of "Libya"..
150.00$ 3-4 days.
