>> World oil prices jumped briefly on Wednesday after a television station
>> in Tulsa, Oklahoma -- the No. 62 U.S. media market -- posted an
>> erroneous story about a refinery fire on its Web site.
> Someone explain something to me.
> Why would the price of a raw material go up due to a refinery fire?
> It'd be like the price of wheat rising on news of a fire at a Wonder
> Bread factory. I could see the price of gasoline rising, but not oil.
Because the amount of oil being 'sold' on the market is _many_times_ higher than the actual volumes delivered.
Many operations buy and sell oil 'futures' to protect themselves against changes in the price of various kinds of refined products -- especially when they do not have the ability to buy/sell futures on the particular product they require.