There seems to be something going on here.

I agree, I think there's something going on here. OPEC thinks there is something going on here.

click to enlarge

The chart above is from OPEC's feature article "Oil price developments challenge market expectations" on page 3 of their Monthly Oil Market Report - October 2007
http://www.opec.org/home/Monthly%20Oil%20Market%20Reports/2007/pdf/MR102... (49 pages)

Quotes below are from page 3 of OPEC's report

In recent years, oil prices have tended to ease with the end of the driving season and the start of the autumn refinery maintenance (see Graph 1). This year, however, prices have exhibited unusual strength and high volatility even beyond the end of the driving season.

OPEC acknowledged strong prices, but it can't possibly be due to their inability to supply oil to meet demand, instead the high oil price is due to these factors

...fears of potential damage to oil installations in the Gulf of Mexico, as storm activity picked up during the peak hurricane month of September; a string of refinery outages particularly in the US market; and increasing geopolitical concerns in various regions. In addition, speculators, encouraged by a weakening dollar, rushed back into the crude oil futures markets, boosting the price premium and the potential for greater volatility...

In the wake of the recent financial turmoil, economic data have also been having an overly strong impact on short-term crude oil prices and volatility

Next, OPEC says that it is able to supply oil to the market if required

Overall, the current supply and demand forecasts predict that the market will be fundamentally balanced over coming
quarters. The Conference will meet in Abu Dhabi in early December to reassess ongoing developments and ensure that the market remains well supplied over the winter season.

Moreover, the upcoming Third Summit of Heads of State and Government of OPEC Member Countries, which will take place in November in Saudi Arabia, will provide long-term guidance to enhance OPEC’s stabilizing role in the market and ensure adequate future supplies to meet the growing energy needs for sustainable development.

I think OPEC is genuinely concerned about the oil price and that their inability to increase supply to meet demand could be exposed soon, especially if this winter is cold.

However, uncertainties remain large. Apart from geopolitics, the big wild cards remain winter weather and the extent of the slowdown in the US and global economy in the coming months. Equally important is the performance of non-OPEC supply, which experienced continuous downward revisions this year.

The last sentence is interesting "performance of non-OPEC supply". OPEC forecasts non-OPEC supply of oil (all liquids) to increase from 49.85 mbd in 3Q07 to 52.12 mbd in 4Q08. This is unlikely to happen and OPEC will say that our planned capacity was based on non-OPEC supply forecasts and the oil price went up because non-OPEC supply increases failed.

The other reason for the price increase in the chart above is that it more closely reflects the supply and demand pressures from crude oil and lease condensate production, not total liquids. OPEC, like the IEA, forecasts supply and demand using total liquids (includes NGPLs and ethanol). If the forecast supply and demand for crude oil and lease condensate (C&C) was used, the price increase, in the chart above, might well be justified by an increasing supply demand gap for C&C, even though there might be a much smaller supply demand gap for oil (total liquids).