Crude Oil Prices Reacting to the Middle East, North African Unrest

Michael Giberson

What's up with crude oil prices? A few updates from around the web:

• FuelFix.com: Oil Prices 101: Why is our crude so expensive?

• Financial Times EnergySource: "Either the Saudis step in or oil prices are going to the moon (and other predictions)"

• Reuters: "NYMEX-US crude hits $103 on Libyan worries, eyes data"

• Associated Press wire store: "Oil Slips Below $100 After Rising Above $103"

• Washington Post's Political Economy blog: "Unrest in Libya prompts flurry of forecasting about gas and oil prices"

And some commentary:

• Robert Lenzner, Forbes: "Beware going long at $112 oil"

• Raymond J. Learsy, Huffington Post: "The Looming Economic Crisis, the Price of Oil, and Our Strategic Petroleum Reserve"

• At FoxNews.com, John Lott argues stimulus spending, not high oil prices, "is hammering consumers."

• Related background from a few years ago: "Economic Effects of High Oil Prices," by the U.S. Energy Information Adminstration, published in the Annual Energy Outlook 2006.