Throwing Light on High Oil Prices and 'Dark Markets' (1/2)

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First a crisis, then calls to investigate. This is happening now with high oil prices. Last Saturday, in Japan, finance ministers of the Group of Eight countries urged oil producing countries to increase production. But they also called on the International Monetary Fund and the International Energy Agency to jointly examine the recent price rise.

I.M.F. chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that some G-Eight ministers were concerned about financial speculation. How important it is and what influence it has on the market will be investigated, he says. A report is expected in October.

In the United States, government agencies are already looking for ways to increase supervision of oil markets.The Commodity Futures Trading Commission just reached an agreement with a London electronic exchange, ICE Futures Europe. ICE, the Intercontinental Exchange, agreed to observe the same trading limits as American markets. Some people have called ICE Futures Europe a "dark market," a market with little supervision.

Regulators want to know more about who is trading in oil futures. A futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell a quantity of a product at a set price and date in the future. The New York Mercantile Exchange began trading oil futures in nineteen eighty-three.

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