Generally speaking, the fundamental reason or basis for determining the upward trend of oil prices is the relationship between oil supply and demand, geopolitical disturbance to supply and demand, speculation and the depreciation of the US dollar, which are all very important factors to promote the upward trend of oil prices, but they can only aggravate the upward trend of oil prices, but cannot create the upward trend of oil prices.

First of all, the fragile supply and demand of oil in the international market is the basic reason for the surge in international oil prices. Despite the slowdown of the world economy, the growth rate of the world economy and oil demand is still relatively fast, while the relative growth of oil supply is slow, and the surplus oil production capacity is obviously insufficient, resulting in a fragile balance between oil supply and demand.

Secondly, geopolitical risks such as political turmoil in major oil-producing countries such as Iraq, the Iranian nuclear issue and anti-government armed forces in Nigeria have aggravated the shortage of oil supply and demand.

Third, speculative fund speculation has become an important reason for the skyrocketing oil prices. With the spread of the subprime mortgage crisis, financial markets such as stock market and bond market are in turmoil, and international hot money lacks investment opportunities, and keeps pouring into the international commodity futures market. At the same time, investment banks advocate that oil prices will continue to "soar" and constantly raise oil prices to new highs. According to the investigation report of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission of the United States, at present, the proportion of WTI futures trading contracts held by the New York Mercantile Exchange speculators accounts for 70% of the total crude oil futures trading contracts in this market, while in 2000 this proportion was only 37%. In addition, at present, about $260 billion of speculative funds have entered the international crude oil futures trading market, 20 times that of 2003.

Fourth, the continued depreciation of the dollar is an important driving factor for the rise in oil prices. The flood of global dollar liquidity and its continuous depreciation have strengthened investors' impulse to hedge oil and other commodities, directly pushing up oil prices. According to the research of American experts, the correlation between 1.990 USD and international oil price is only 1.2%, but it is as high as 98% at present.