This is a guest post by Chris Cook. Chris is Former Director of the International Petroleum Exchange, and is now a Strategic Market Consultant and commentator.

Clearly manipulation has been going on in the global market in oil – there's nothing new about that – it's what intermediaries who transact for profit do and have always done. Indeed, some market wags say that trading could be defined as “acceptable market manipulation”. But until the last few years what consenting adults were doing among themselves in the oil market didn't really affect the man in the street.

But things have changed. We have now reached the culmination of a process of financialisation of the oil market to a degree where the market has become entirely sociopathic. It now operates to the detriment of consumers and producers alike and for the benefit of the intermediaries who control the market.

How did we get here? Who's doing it? How are they doing it? And what can be done about it?

Rising North Sea oil production was a significant factor in keeping oil prices under control in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Production peaked at 6.4 million barrels per day in 2000 and since then, declining North Sea Oil production is one significant reason that oil prices are now rising exponentially.