Take what you want from the chart. I believe that speculation ran up oil prices in '08. However, it is apparent during that time period that demand also significantly overshot supply. Both conditions - excess speculation and a drop in supply could have co-existed.
Article is a complete line of bs, as someone else mentioned. I am developing a hypothesis about what all this critisism of trading (articles such as this, the transaction tax push) is really about: To understand most things one must look to who benefits. Who benefits from the regulation and taxes these critics suggest? The old guard: The big banks, the biggest corps who have the lawyers, lobbying, and pull to manipulate the laws in their favor in order to create a cartel. It was much easier for the insiders club to make a living before all the entrepreneural trading firms and alternative exchanges existed. Upstarts have taken away much of the "connected" firms easy gravy. These articles criticizing entrepreneural firms are just a front to turn the markets once again into a cartel that shuts the rest of us out from competing. Pure and simple. This is what the left and their big business cronies always try to pull. How is that for a conspiracy theory for ya. Yet, look at history: IT is the endgame of most calls for "fairness" or "regulation for the public good".
USO intraday is a beautiful thing. Trade what you see, it will tell you when you are wrong. I hope the powers that be don't screw this up. That said I have seen strange things that happen all the time in this market.