Did speculators use unregulated markets to drive up oil prices?

By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have uncovered evidence that oil speculators operating in unregulated "dark markets" may have helped drive the price of crude oil to record highs this year, McClatchy has learned.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is expected to issue a long-awaited report before Monday, perhaps as early as Thursday, on what role oil speculators played in the 50 percent rise in oil prices earlier this year. The report isn't expected to declare that speculators are the main cause of the price rise, a conclusion the agency rejected in an interim report in July.