By the time this article appears, the International Energy Agency may have co-ordinated another release of strategic oil stocks in a bid to cool the market.
The Paris-based watchdog, following a lead from US President Obama and UK Prime Minster Cameron's recent talks, is worried about the impact of high prices on the fragile economic recovery.
But tellingly, the IEA does not say what it thinks is a reasonable price of crude.
A release of strategic stocks last occurred in June 2011 when some 60 million barrels were pumped out of reserves.
Prices for Brent, the world's most reflective benchmark, dipped for just a week before recovering as the loss of Libyan sweet crude collided with summer seasonal demand.
Crude markets did start to cool rapidly in the second half of the year, but this was down to the sovereign debt burden of the Eurozone.
The problem today is that oil market conditions are much tighter than last summer.
Global oil demand was 700,000 barrels a day higher in January than previously assumed, the IEA noted in its March report, after China and others started to stock build.
Crude supplies have already been disrupted this year before the impact of the Iranian ban on oil exports takes effect in July.
OPEC's spare capacity has slipped under the crucial three million barrel buffer, which will keep the market jittery throughout the summer.
If the IEA releases oil stocks now, how far would the price of Brent drop and for how long?
There is a large risk premium embedded in the current price, and that is unlikely to fade while the current market conditions prevail, and Iran refuses to give up its nuclear ambitions.
The IEA runs the risk of wasting its bullets before peak summer demand.
George Osborne wriggled enough within the straightjacket of deficit to pull a pro-business UK budget out of the hat last month, but he missed the big trick.
It is time the Bank of England lost the power to set UK interest rates and it went back to the Chancellor of the Exchequer - a move that will not only improve monetary policy but will also fend off Scottish independence.
The decision to give the Bank of England independence in 1997 was a pillar of the incoming New Labour government, along with the promise of no more boom or bust.
Of course, the 2008 financial crisis was not the fault of the Bank of England, but the UK's current dire financial predicament has occurred since the separation of monetary and fiscal occurred.
One problem is the narrow remit of the Bank of England in viewing inflation, which took no account of the ballooning house market during the last decade, despite the living memory of the early 1990s crash.
Even today, Bank of England Monetary policymakers are divided over how to tackle the next housing boom. Minutes of the last meeting show some members of the financial policy committee want to adopt a tough stance to control lending and protect against another crash, but they were outvoted.
The regulator is still not comfortable in taking an active role in preventing housing bubbles, even though this financial policy committee was set up to tackle systemic risk in the financial sector.
What might have happened if the Chancellor of the Exchequer was still setting interest rates during the last decade? Without doubt, Gordon Brown would have been enormous pressure from the opposition over inflating house prices. With an economy seemingly growing for umpteen consecutive quarters, it would have been one of the soft spots in the Chancellor's armour.
Instead, any concerns raised were easily swatted away because the Bank of England was keeping inflation under control and the Financial Services Authority was maintaining regulation. Politics was shut out.
Osborne would be better to have the final say over UK interest rate levels, while taking stock of the published opinion from the Bank of England. The buck should stop with an elected official, not a committee of bureaucrats.
Such a move would also go a long way to securing the UK against the threat of breakup from the Scottish nationalists.
The bravehearts of the Scottish National Party are actively campaigning to keep the UK pound if they win the referendum on independence to be held in 2014. How this tallies with independence is a mystery because Scottish government spending would need to be constrained by a fiscal stability pact.
But would the Scots want this so-called independence in 2014 if the UK Chancellor George Osborne was still in charge of interest rates?
© MENA Fund Review 2012
