Supply-Driven Oil Price Rally

Carl Etnier from the Rutland Herald wrote an interesting piece on why oil prices have been rising and to role of speculators. Carl mentioned an article to me that said the rally was due to speculators because oil demand is still weak. My response was:

"The thing that annoys me about those sorts of articles [blaming speculation] is that it says oil demand is down and so price should not be rising. Since the beginning of 2009 demand is down year on year by 2 million barrels per day but supply is down over 3.5 million barrels per day (due to OPEC cuts)."