Prices are high simply because some morons are attempting to rape the market by speculating on futures. The same freaking thing happens to everything that has a futures market. Terror threats and war in the ME has nothing at all to do with it. There are a bunch of stupid arrogant little petty individuals in little cubicles driving the prices up by speculating, just as they did by day trading. Albert deSalvo or David Berkowitz could be president and the same thing would happen. The SEC should be doing something about regulating futures markets, but they aren't.