I have just appointed you CEO of CW4D oil. If you were required to sell gas at a price reflective of what you bought the crude for and you bought at say $60 a barrel and could either refine it or sell that crude for $100 a barrel what would you do? Well you'd make quite a bit more money selling it for the $100. Then whoever bought it would then sell it reflective of that $100 they paid. Now we don't really have that limitation but you can see how gas prices are going to go up with the expected price of oil in the near future, not what a particular batch was bought at.
As someone who worked in the oil and gas industry for almost 25 years (refining side), I can say your analogy is spot on. A lot of oil is bought on speculation, stored, then sold when the price goes up. The refinery I worked on has one of the largest tank fields in the Western Hemisphere. The company makes a lot of money storing speculators oil.
However, there are many other factors involved as well. To go through them all and explain would take pages. In the past, the price of oil has been at $100/bbl (and higher). Gas prices went up, though not to this extent.
I’m quite sure the industry won’t come right out and say it, but we’re also seeing “Making hay while the sun shines“. Meaning the industry is making up for lost profits due to the pandemic. Millions of people were working from home, not commuting and not buying gas, limited air travel leading to limited need for fuel, etc. Now, more people are going back to work at their work places, air travel is opening up more (though not so much to Europe now), and summer is coming. Historically, gas prices have always gone up for summer travel. This year, that increase is more than normal.
Another factor is the increased popularity of hybrids and fully electric vehicles.
Really, I could go on and on.