Oil drillers/exporters short sell the contracts to 'create' them. A speculator buys the contract.Quote from ProgrammerGuy:
If heggies & investments banks are the reason for the run up in commodities prices can someone PLEASE PLEASE answer this.
If you say that the hedge funds and Investment banks keep on driving prices higher, they do that by buying. Well if they are buying then you MUST take delivery of the commodity. In a you tube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNp0y0SjOkY it says that Morgan Stanley is the #1 holder of heating oil in UK.
What are they doing with all that heating oil? If Investment banks & hedge funds are NOT using heating oil, crude oil, sugar, corn... etc and they are in fact hoarding it, then wouldn't they eventually have to sell it? causing the price to go back down to where it originally was?
Near expiration the speculator sells his contract to a exporter, which sends his oil.
The exporter 'missed' this profit from the price increase, but remember that:
A. The next month oil price is higher, so the exporter only missed one month profit (his profits increse, altough delayed one month).
B. Most oil is traded spot, so exporters only 'miss' a small part of the profits.