Well, there has never been a "shortage" of oil... if you ready Money Reports - oil inventories are currently very full - and basically too much is on the market already. Correctly pegged, its the speculators.
I dont think that the Government would push any kind of revolution because of the oil prices as their first concern. It has been stated by any economist - if we sustain $4.00 oil gas only 90 days... the last 3 years of government money injections will become null and void. That = complete failure of Obama.
$3.50 gas will only take 120 days to accomplish that.
The oil companies have no vested interest in $115.00 per barrel oil... they just don't. While the profits are great - when it busts like last time - it puts them into an unstable and considerably forseeable stagnant profit zone. The profits today only support them for the minimal profits when it goes bust again.
Investors are already on the up trend of cashing their profits out right now... you will see oil back to the 70-80$ per barrel range by July. There is no doubt about it because inventories are at peak. Excess inventories = price wars.
Very few oil companies sell their gas "at the pumps". There are a ton of vendors that buy it and sell it. There is quite a bit of competition out there and they wont pay their bills unless they sell the gas.
Interesting Note for you all: I live in a city that is a major distribution point for gas right out of the pipeline. We have enormous tanks storing it. And my city out of a huge area pays the most for it.
The podunk towns pay less than we do. It costs less to deliver it to our pumps... while towns 100 miles away who get their gas from this storage pay less! Conspiracy!