I've tried to help myself and trawl around the internet but I can't seem to find any information on whether higher crude oil prices have any direct effect on the price of oil stocks.

Can anyone point me at some links please?

Not necessarily and not always. Apparently petrol retailing (ie getting oil to the end consumer/user) is a very low-profit margin business. On the other hand I would have thought explo stocks would rise along with any rise in the oil price.

If you want to profit on where you think oil prices will head in the future, why not take out a sbet/future on the oil price?

Have a look at this graph of oil prices from 1997 to end 2003:



And the BP share price in that time:

http://mwprices.ft.com/custom/ft-com/inter...%7E0&sid=157297

See any link?


Also, try the Oil and Gas Board on the Motley Fool, it's a goldmine of information:

http://boards.fool.co.uk/Messages.asp?bid=50029