NOT JUST THE SPECULATORS

McClatchy reported last week that in addition to a refinery fire in Washingto State and a bankruptcy of a European refiner, speculators are playing a large role in the increase in gas prices:

A McClatchy review of the latest Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates oil trading, shows that producers and merchants made up just 36 percent of all contracts traded in the week ending Feb. 14.

That same week, open interest, or the total outstanding oil contracts for next-month delivery of 1,000 barrels of oil (about 42,000 gallons), stood near an all-time high above 1.486 million. Speculators who'll never take delivery of oil made up 64 percent of the market.

Yesterday, NPR revealed another cause: refinery closures...

For instance, a number of companies - Sunoco, Conoco, Hess - have all shut down refineries in the U.S., cutting off 5 percent of U.S. gasoline production.

And the big reason is that these refineries are outmoded and unprofitable. They're old refineries. They haven't been updated to refine high-sulfur crude oil. So they can't compete with the other refineries that can. So there's a shortage of gasoline. Interestingly, there's not a shortage of crude oil. It's...