"Analysts said a floor remains underneath oil prices, which are 33 percent higher than a year ago, for a variety of reasons:
— With daily global demand roughly 85 million barrels per day, the world's oil producers have less than 2 million barrels per day of spare production capacity, and most of that is for Saudi blends of oil that are less ideal for manufacturing transportation fuels.
— Oil traders are nervous about geopolitical tensions ranging from violence in Nigeria to the West's nuclear standoff with Iran to the move toward greater nationalization of natural resources in energy-rich Venezuela.
— The global economy is expanding, and that means the thirst for oil is only going to grow.
— Speculative investors are piling into energy markets as a way to profit from soaring prices and geopolitical turmoil that could potentially be bad for equities prices."
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/business/energy/3817761