Speculators can contribute to short-term spikes and drops (eg they surely played a role in the rapid 2008 runup to $147 and subsequent crash to $34).
But they aren’t responsible for the general trend towards high oil prices that we’ve seen this decade. Global oil production has basically not increased at all for 5 or 6 years against a trend of increasing global demand.
Speculators, along economic booms and slowdowns, can cause a lot of volatility around the underlying upward trend in oil prices. But they aren’t responsible for the trend itself… the “blame” there lies with the inability of oil production to keep up with rising demand.
