ABSTRACT
Crude oil prices are structurally unstable. This is a characteristic that oil has in common with multiple other raw materials and manufactured products, whose supply is rigid relative to price in the short term. The stability of the oil market would gain out of expanding commercial storage availability. The companies of the two pre-eminent emerging importers, China and India, are seeking access to upstream resources pretty much globally. The International Energy Outlook, published yearly, normally contains three scenarios for future energy supply and demand: a reference, a high oil price and a low oil price scenario. The best approach to a useful definition of volatility is to focus on its consequences. As Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was unable to defend the prices that it had attempted to consolidate, the price making function shifted to two markets: Brent in the United Kingdom and West Texas Intermediate in the United State Of America.
