Blame Twitter for the increased oil prices

The BBC are reporting that unleaded petrol has now reached 130p per litre and are blaming Libya. I¹m not convinced. Libya only accounts for about 2.3 percent of global oil production and even now the Arabian Gulf Oil Co¹s production in east Libya is around a third of normal levels.

The real cause of the current price increase seems to be Twitter and Facebook. The social networking sites are allowing protestors to organise uprisings with a sophistication and speed which have taken analysts completely by surprise. Increased oil prices are the market¹s response to all this uncertainty and the possibility of this revolutionary fervour spreading.

It’s not unreasonable: after all, four of the top ten oil producing countries in the world are in the Middle East. The role of social networking is something which the highly-paid financial analyst hasn¹t been trained to deal with. This is a whole new type of revolution, there are no precedents or models and consequently the markets are over-reacting to events in the area.