Markets do not like uncertainty and the current state of the world's oil markets is a reflection of great confusion among consumers and producers. This is the time of the year, as northern hemisphere countries start to warm up, that oil prices are meant to weaken. Instead, the price on Thursday rose to a record high of $57.60 a barrel and there is talk that it could climb as high as $80.
It is all a long way from the price of $10 a barrel which reigned in the late 1990s when the Asian recession sent demand down sharply. That price slump, however, made oil producers, even arch-rivals like Iran and Saudi Arabia, determined to forge a unity which would underpin prices.
This co-operation has worked more effectively and for longer than anyone imagined. In addition the world demand for oil, despite all the talk of alternative energy and conservation measures, has risen exponentially. Giant economies such as the United States and - more notably in this context - China, where oil conservation is almost an alien concept, are experiencing stronger than expected growth and consequently are demanding a larger share of the world's oil.
Oil producers want high prices but not so high as to fuel inflation in the larger economies and slow down growth or even tip them into recession. If that happens, as they found to their cost in the past, the price of oil collapses. But there are no simple, swift solutions.
As price-conscious consumers will discover when they next fuel their car, oil producers are finding it difficult to keep up with demand. At an Opec meeting in Tehran this week it was agreed that output would be increased immediately by half a million barrels a day with a proviso that a further increase will be contemplated if the price does not settle down.
There is considerable doubt, however, that the Opec nations, particularly the largest producer Saudi Arabia, would be able to increase output sufficiently to meet the needs of the market. There is little spare capacity - in what is pumped and in what can be refined. Add to that uncertainty over Iraqi oil supplies and hostility to private investment in oil-rich Russia and the prospects for increased output are not favourable. Any outbreak of war or serious unrest in an oil-producing region will, analysts predict, send the price all the way to $80.
It beggars belief that mature, industrialised nations continue to leave themselves so exposed to a commodity which is susceptible to price instability of this order. The options of raising taxes on petroleum products, of forcing conservation measures and of state assistance to alternative energy projects get little more than lip service. On Thursday, the US Senate opened up the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to future oil exploration. For the sake of six months' supply of oil for the US - which will not be available for 10 years - one of the world's last great wild regions is to be destroyed. Future generations will not forgive this obsession lightly.