Still, it’s unclear that releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a maneuver the White House made last June 23 in hopes of easing prices at the pump, will be much of a fix.

Gas prices were roughly $3.60 when the drawdown occurred, and were depressed for only a few days before climbing back over $3.70 a month later. Because of that, many traders tend to dismiss the recent chatter in Washington about releasing more oil from the SPR as bad politics.

“The seaborne oil market is extremely tight,” says one bullish hedgie. “As much as the politicians love blaming speculators, if the market was up on speculation and not fundaments, the physical market would be trading at a discount.”

Goldman Sachs commodities analysts agree with him, at least on the first part.

“We expect fundamentals will continue to tighten during 2012,” the firm said in a March 14 report, “pushing prices toward our 2013 Brent crude oil price target of $130 [per barrel]. With OPEC spare capacity and inventories low, the balance of risk to crude oil prices remains skewed to the upside.”

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