The best way to drive up the price of a commodity is to make it (or pretend that it is) rare.
For years they told us that oil was created by dead dinosaurs (thus the “fossil fuel” scam) but it is well known now that that simply is not true. No genetic markers have ever been found in any crude oil anywhere in the world. In fact many geologists are starting to understand that oil is in fact just the condensed gasses created by the burning inner core of the earth and as such is a vast as well as renewable resource. However this is the last thing oil traders want you to know. Because commodities like oil are traded on a futures market it makes sense to pretend that in the future oil will be rare and as such they drive the market price through the roof. For example right now it still cost about $12 a barrel to pull oil out of the ground but the future traders on Wall Street have jacked the price up over $60 a barrel based on what may happen to the supply in the future.