Increasing margin requirements to 20% on oil futures and coercing refineries to work to 90% capacity instead of 70% would drop the price of crude a third in six weeks.
There has never, ever in human history been as much crude above ground waiting for a sale than there is at this exact second. And the supply above ground grows daily and is expected to grow for the next ten to fifteen years by which time most industrialists believe alternative power sources will be cheap enough to begin replacing petroleum as fuel. Fact is petroleum has tens of thousands of uses, none of which are as critical as its use as fuel.
This is the good old days for the petroleum industry. Thank Clinton for signing CFTMA. His kneepadder clownshow don't understand any more about the effects of that than white trash understand about the long term effects of tripling the debt in the 1980s.
See, that's ^^ what it looks like when you know what you're talking about.
The CFMA -- shepherded through under cover of night by Phil Gramm in December of 2000, while the country was distracted arguing over who the next president was.