Oil races to $68, ignoring bloated inventories

It was Scottish poet Robert Burns who first wrote that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

Surely he was a soothsayer predicting the fate of the oil bears in the early 21st century. The world is awash in oil, with inventories so high that global storage tanks are limiting the ability of both oil producing nations and oil companies to stockpile oil, Bloomberg News reported. But the oil market has basically ignored that sloshy reality for the last three months. During that March-May period oil persistently trended higher, from about $37 to $66 per barrel -- up a remarkable 78 percent. On Monday, the first day of June, oil shot up another $1.98 to $68.29 per barrel, before pulling back slightly to trade about $67.75 at mid-day.