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In the City, Barclays, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are leading the charge into oil but, in addition, several secretive hedge funds are now wagering hundreds of millions of dollars every day in the oil market and reaping the dividends. Over the past few months, ABN Amro has also built up an oil-trading team.

“We have a database of about 300 people in London who are capable of trading oil so, as you can imagine, they are very highly desired,” said one bank executive.

However, consumers and businesses are paying the price of the speculators’ profits with higher petrol, energy and air-travel bills. Last month, British Gas increased its prices sharply as a result of higher oil prices. Npower followed suit last week.

Nationwide building society calculates that the impact of higher oil prices on households is the same as a quarter-point rise in mortgage costs.

The International Energy Authority, an intergovernmental organisation, recently criticised the role of speculators. They have also been attacked by French and American government ministers. Alan Greenspan, chairman of America’s Federal Reserve Board, said that speculators had caused oil prices to “surge”.

A secret analysis of the market carried out by a big European oil company recently found that speculators were adding between $7 and $8 — or between 15% and 20% — to the price of a barrel of oil.

This month, rocketing petrol prices forced Gordon Brown, the chancellor, to delay a proposed increase in fuel duty.

A senior executive at one oil firm said: “This is the hottest oil market I have ever seen. There has been a massive increase in hedge-fund activity. And what we call non-commercial interests (those who do not use oil for their business) has doubled recently.

“A lot of new banks are coming in and all the speculation is very disruptive.”

Much of the trading by hedge funds has been driven by sophisticated computer-trading models. The models, known as “black boxes”, use complicated formulas to determine trades for a hedge fund.

Over the past few years, a number of hedge funds have added the oil markets to their trading systems as the price of oil tends to rise sharply after periods of strong economic growth. Hedge-fund insiders therefore say that oil is an excellent short-term bet.

The sharp rises and falls in the market over the past month are symptomatic of such computer-generated trading. Prices rose sharply to almost $50 a barrel, at which point the computers kicked in to automatically sell huge positions.