Consumption is NOT way down. It has only gone down about 2% since the first of the year. Speculators are barely 20% of the market and have minimal effect on the trend.
It’s all about refinery capacity and demand. Demand is still very high and expected to increase by the end of this year.
With high gas prices taking a big bite out of family budgets, Americans drove almost 10 billion fewer miles in May 2008 than in May 2007,
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/BusinessTravel/story?id=5465036&page=1
In 2000, 37 percent of the people in the oil futures market were speculators, Dorgan said. Now, speculators make up 71 percent of the market.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92793924
You may not like the source, but facts are facts.
Refinery capacity that was last reported they are running 87% of capacity (down from 93-97% just a year ago).