Oil prices not driven by speculation: Pickens

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Soaring crude oil prices are not being driven by speculative trading, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens said on Tuesday.

Asked about the role of institutional investors in high prices, Pickens told reporters on Capitol Hill that he does not "agree that that has anything to do with oil prices ... It's a global market. It doesn't have anything to do with traders on Wall Street or any place else."

Pickens, who heads BP Capital hedge fund with more than $4 billion under management, also said that increased oversight of oil markets by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) represents "a waste of time."

(Reporting by Jasmin Melvin; Writing by Missy Ryan)