Understanding oil prices: a guide to what drives the price of oil in today's mar

In Understanding Oil Prices Carollo identifies the key players in this dangerous game, exploring their competing interests and motivations, their moves and countermoves. Beginning with the1976 oil embargo and moving through the 1986 Chernobyl incident, the implementation of the US Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, and the precipitous expansion of the oil futures market since the turn of the century, he traces the vast structural changes which have occurred within the oil industry over the past four decades, identifying their economic, social and geopolitical drivers, and analysing their fallout in the global economy. He explores the oil industryHs decision to scale down refining capacity in the face of increasing demand and the effects of global shortages of petrol, diesel, jet fuel, fuel oil, chemical feedstocks, lubricants and other essential finished products, and describes how, beginning in the year 2000, the oil futures market detached itself almost completely from the crude market, leading to the assetization of oil, and the crippling impact reckless speculation in oil futures has had on the global economy. Finally he proposes new, more sophisticated models that economists and financial analysts can use to make sense of todayHs oil market, while offering industry leaders and government policymakers prescriptions for stabilising the market to ensure a relatively steady flow of affordable oil. (http://as.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1119962722.html)