[jyl]

Look at chart of oil px over past year. Don't show oil px running up and away, merely coming off Feb weakness to levels of Jan. Potentially a bottom made in Feb but really too early to say that.

Reason for trading behaviour - latest data showed some recovery in US miles driven, talk about more OPEC production cuts, some incremental optimism on China economy (note FXI best-acting of all global stock markets), probably some other things I didn't notice. Edit - I'm told last 2 weeks inventory data was also incrementally better (less/no invtry build).

What do you mean by "high" oil prices? $40 is not high, even $70 is not high.

Longer-term, projections I've seen show global supply exceeding demand through 2010, then supply flattening out so if demand recovers and continues rising should be upwards pressure on price. Severe global recession hitting demand hard, low oil prices hitting development of new fields but that takes years to show up in reduced supply, little impact on current supply.

I have not been betting (either long or short) on oil for some months. So not super current on the analysis. But anyway I think oil exceeds $100 in 2-3 years.