The housing bubble has burst. So what about the oil bubble?

Crude oil futures prices continue a steep upward trend on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Billionaire Texas energy investor Boone Pickens predicts that prices will top $100 in coming months.

Motorists are feeling the pinch, with the average price for regular-grade gas rising to $2.80 a gallon nationally and $2.68 in Texas. More increases are likely.

As I learned in college economics classes, prices of oil and other commodities are based predominantly on supply and demand. The more limited the supply and greater the demand, the higher prices will be. As a Fort Worth Star-Telegram business writer covering the oil industry from 1985 to 1993, I saw how heightened energy conservation and higher fuel economy standards depressed U.S. oil and gasoline prices by whittling demand.

But something funny is going on now. It appears increasingly obvious that oil prices are being pushed into the stratosphere by speculators in a lightly regulated global trading market that has grown by leaps and bounds.

Traditional supply-and-demand factors can’t explain the price jump. There’s no shortage of oil or gasoline, nor major supply disruptions. World oil demand has stabilized at about 85 million barrels a day.

A weak dollar has made purchases of oil on the futures market look increasingly attractive to foreign investors. But that can’t account for $90 oil.

A favorite whipping boy – “Middle Eastern tensions” – again is being trotted out to explain the soaring prices. Yes, Turkey is threatening to go after Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. Yes, Iran continues to invite trouble, including a potential U.S. military strike. But even if one of these hot spots explodes, the odds are still against a major, sustained curtailment of global oil supplies.

Fadel Gheit, a respected energy analyst for Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, predominantly blames speculators.

“There is absolutely no shortage of oil,” he told me by telephone recently. “I’m absolutely convinced that oil prices shouldn’t be a dime above $55 a barrel.”

Oil speculators include “the largest financial institutions in the world,” he said. “I call it the world’s largest gambling hall. … It’s open 24/7. … Unfortunately, it’s totally unregulated. …This is like a highway with no cops and no speed limit, and everybody’s going 120 miles per hour.”

Speculators can trade from anywhere via their Blackberries and buy oil on the margins by putting up only a small fraction of the price of a barrel, Gheit said.

Oil prices are escalated by a “fear premium,” he acknowledges – trepidation that events such as a new Mideastern conflict will escalate prices.

Gheit said he is “making a bet that the U.S. will have air strikes in Iran in the next two to four months,” but he notes that global oil supplies haven’t been seriously curtailed even by the prolonged war in Iraq.

Gheit and I share the belief that stronger oversight and regulation of energy markets are needed. Fortunately, Congress is looking at strengthening the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, as outlined in a recent in-depth story in the Washington Post.

Gheit and I share another belief: America needs to stress energy conservation, including adopting substantially higher fuel economy standards for vehicles, to lessen our dependence on foreign oil and reduce air pollution. Two-thirds of U.S. oil consumption is for transportation.

It’s my bet that oil prices eventually will fall considerably, as supply-and-demand fundamentals prevail over market speculation. Some traders undoubtedly will take a financial bath. In the near term, however, gas-guzzling U.S. motorists will be taking it in the shorts.