There are hundreds if not thousands of oil producers on earth, most independent. Oil is priced at the margin, so the last price per barrel is the new price for every barrel.That's the very definition of price manipulation.
The reason big oil can do this is, there is not a viable substitute.
Have you checked the big oil profitability lately? Oh yeah, and subsidies, both and indirect?
The oil market is probably the closest thing we have to a free market left on earth. Its literally the only true global market.
By your definition then all real estate transactions are price manipulation, since every house on the block resets based on whatever the last house that sold was, and builders make more or less houses depending on average price + demand.
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