Militant attacks on oil instillations by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta the last few days, has increased worries about the status of the world oil supplies. These attacks have helped support the high price of oil as the situation in Africa's largest oil producing country has no visible solution.

Worries about oil shortage due to StatoilHydro closing down oilfields with a capacity of 138,000 barrels pr. day, has pushed oil above $133 in the early trading on Monday. Oil spill being the cause of the shutdown, StatoilHydro now has reopened two of their oilfields but the Statfjord A field with a capacity of 19,000 bpd is still shut down.

For the third straight month, Indian inflation has been above the central banks target. This has raised concern that commercial lenders may be ordered to increase reserve. Should this come about, it would be the third time this year.

With the wholesale price rising Yaga Venugopal Reddy, governor of the Indian central bank, said on May 20, that India's current inflation rate was unacceptable and that the central bank is ready to respond in a swift manner. Last month the central bank unexpectedly raised the reserve requirement twice last month.

Corn traded higher yesterday settling at $6.08 as worries related to wet weather in the Midwest states, began to hit the market. Worries that to much rain could damage the crop was not helpful in an environment that looks at the present state of supplies as being tight.

Other agricultural commodities also traded higher, with July soybeans trading at $13.52 and July wheat trading at $7.93 up 9 cents per contract.

Oil raced to $135 on Wednesday going further into uncharted territory. With these higher prices, crude oils open interest has dropped 8.1% in a week, indicating that money is being removed from the market. Specialists claim that this drop in open interest is due to the fact that speculators that expected oil to drop, had been forced to exit their positions. Open interest has been sliding for some time, or since the open interest reached a top on June 16, 2007.

Oil prices have reached their highest highs in the last few days and with oil now passing the $130 price level, the voices of $140 are getting higher. Higher prices of oil are believed to be driven by a combination of production worries and tight supplies.

The price of gold has been following the high price of oil as a way for investors to hedge against inflation. With oil continuing its climb, the attraction of gold increases. Even though Saudi Arabia has claims to be increasing production, the market seems skeptical about their intentions or even ability to do so.

According to the Lehman brothers brokerage, commodities are a bubble about to burst. Record breaking commodity prices that have drawn fund managers toward commodity investment, threatening to form an asset bubble that could be about to explode soon.

Estimating total assets under management in commodity indices to have increased to $253 billion by April from only about $70 billion in 2006. About $90 billion is accounted for by financial inflows with the remaining $75 billion stemming from price appreciation of the underlying investment.

Thursday saw higher gold prices after an early surge in crude oil. As higher oil prices are considered inflationary, the price of gold has been getting stronger as a hedge against inflation. A price of $900 is considered a possibility by some analysts, even as early as next week if the oil continues to be strong. Even though oil has eased off a bit, there is still the talk about $150 for the barrel, which adds inflation fears and supports the price of gold.

As the world tea market has been seeing production surpass the demand, ways are being sought to increase demand as other measures to balance supplies and demand have not been fruitful. Increased consumption has been seen as a way out for tea, according to an FAO report prepared for the Intergovernmental Group on Tea meeting in Hangzhou, China (14-16 May 2008).