This is a volatile market which is extremely jittery about supply shocks. The hurricane season is still in full-swing and the market can only focus on that right now.

There was a shortage of capacity before Katrina, which got worse, and which is now under threat from Rita.

It doesn’t matter how much crude you pump in, you won’t have a meaningful effect on prices if you can’t get refined product out,

News of a fifth consecutive weekly stock build is putting a general weight on oil prices.

We’re dealing with the short-term supply shock now, although there are still further risks as the hurricane season continues.

The post-drought rebuilding will hold back a bit of the growth and see agriculture still being a negative for 2005-06, but set us up for a very good 2006-07 – assuming average seasonal conditions,

The highs are getting higher and so are the lows. The only way to break that cycle is a negative demand shock or a positive supply shock, neither of which seem likely in the short...

We’re being bounced around as robust crude supplies take the cream off a market driven up by geo-political concerns.

What people are feeling is that Iran is a longer-term issue. The risk to supply is lying much further out, and is still somewhat unclear.