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"It is true that a lot of what's driving oil prices up right now is not the lack of supply. There's enough supply. There's enough oil out there for world demand," Obama said.

"The problem is ... speculators and people make various bets, and they say, you know what, we think that maybe there's a 20 percent chance that something might happen in the Middle East that might disrupt oil supply, so we're going to bet that oil is going to go up real high. And that spikes up prices significantly."

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Tuesday he was concerned that rising crude oil and gasoline prices could undermine U.S. economic recovery.
Obama said the U.S. government was in a position to investigate unfair speculation.

Two U.S. agencies that investigate potential energy market manipulation -- the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) -- recently agreed to share information on potential probes. We're going to be monitoring gas stations to make sure there isn't any price gouging that's taking advantage of consumers," Obama said.