BenjamineCole, I certainly hope you are right about oil supplies, however, I don't believe it. The main reason is that Exxon, Shell,Conoco-Phillips ,Sunoco and Total are all investing billions in the Alberta Tar Sands and Four Corners Kerogen shales in the Green River formation(so-called oil shale). A little bit of arithmetic shows these sources cost $100,000.00 per barrel per day of level production in capital costs, plus another $20-$30 in production costs per barrel of synthetic crude. That's excluding transportation and refining costs.
While many nasty things can be said about big oil, they are not fools. If the world were'nt running out of cheap oil this would not make economic sense-who drills a million dollar well for 10 bbls./day of production? I've been in oil and gas exploration since 1976, believe me, those numbers don't fly because the flow rate must be good enough to pay the well out within 30 months and have a total return on investment of at least 4:1 to justify a new well in a development situation. Two years and 6:1 in a wildcat.
Of course the majors have different economics, they treasure a steady flow to keep their refinery and chemical operations working. But, watch what they do, not what they say.
As far as hedge funds being behind the peak oil folks, contact me, I'm very easily bribed!
All joking aside, the problem with any conspiracy is that most people can't keep their mouths shut. It's human nature. And especially the types that make up hedge fund cowboys-when they were all natural gas players at Enron, Dynegy and El Paso they all rolled over. But, this isn't glamerous or prooveable, just the truth. My personal psychological theory about "conspiracy theories" is that they are actually a form of denial, people are denying that real events are out of control so they blame a conspiracy, the Elders of Zion, the Illuminati, the Masons, the devil, Communists, The Government suppressing Aliens,Big Oil and OPEC.