Oil rises to $112 dollars a barrel, is this peak oil?

Just yesterday I wrote an article about how peak oil may be driving up the price of oil as supply dwindles, today futures jumped from $108 to $112 a barrel for crude oil due to lower than expected crude oil inventories in the US. While this may be being caused by peak oil being passed it is also important to realise the effect that a weak dollar is having on the price of oil. As the dollar falls in value the price of oil in dollars rises in order to continue to be worthwhile for the sellers, this makes it more expensive for ordinary Americans and big business in the US to purchase oil and do business as a whole.

The devaluation of the dollar also goes a long way to explaining some of the rising cost of commodities in the US also another part of the cost could be due to the increasing cost of oil to transport the goods from producer to purchaser. Also for many commodities the increasing price can be partly attributed to the rising global population especially with resources such as oil as energy is fundamental to economic growth.

Although peak oil will probably happen in the near future there are a myriad of other factors which may be causing the increase in oil prices, we may not know until the point of peak oil has passed that it has happened as it could be camouflaged by any of these factors. This however does not mean that we can't look for indicators that we may be passing it, one example of such an indicator may be Russia not increasing oil production for the past 3 months despite rapidly rising prices.

It seems the only way we can be sure as to the root cause of oil prices increases is to wait, only after the distraction of the current market turmoil has passed and it can be looked at it away from the haze of confusing false information will wetruly know whether it was speculator or supply cause that has led to the rapid rise in the price of oil.