I think that Soros or someone like him manipulated the futures market to cause the high prices to create a crisis that Obamanation could use to further his nomination/campaign.
OTOH, I've thought for a while that the surge in oil prices was from people doubling down when they got a profit. There were a lot of people in oil that had never played commodities before. When they were buying oil futures and getting a fast 15% return over a month or so, they just kept betting. When they took their first bath on the oil dip, they all jumped back out and oil returned to a price that more resembled reality.