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Oil prices continue to surge on Iran jitters
AFP
NEW YORK
Petroleumworld.com 04 12 06Oil prices continued to surge Tuesday, with the price of Brent North Sea crude in London closing at an all-time high near 70 dollars a barrel, while New York prices closed at the highest level in seven months.
The price of Brent North Sea crude oil closed at a record 69.37 dollars a barrel, up 62 cents from Monday's close, but off from an all-time high of 69.70 dollars a barrel struck earlier Tuesday.
Traders said international oil prices continued to spike amid fears that the United States may launch a military strike against major crude producer Iran, especially as Iran said Tuesday it had enriched uranium for the first time.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, meanwhile, the benchmark May contract for light sweet crude closed up 24 cents at 68.98 dollars a barrel, the highest close since September 1.
Dealers said the market had ignored efforts by US President George W. Bush to dismiss as "wild speculation" reports over the weekend that Washington was studying options for military strikes against Iran's uranium facilities.
The dealers added that speculators had piled into the market, driving prices higher. Concerns that gasoline (petrol) supplies may struggle to keep pace with US peak demand this year had also driven prices up, they said.
Crude futures were also supported by geopolitical concerns in Nigeria, Africa's biggest producer of crude.
Earlier Tuesday, the New York contract reached a peak of 69.45 dollars per barrel -- also the highest level since September 1, 2005.
On Monday, Brent crude had breached its previous record high of 68.89 dollars, reached on August 30, 2005 after Hurricane Katrina had battered energy installations in the US Gulf Coast.
Also on August 30 last year, New York crude reached a record peak of 70.85 dollars per barrel.
Explaining Tuesday's initial price jump, Global Insight analyst Simon Wardell said: "What's happened is a result of what we saw at the weekend in terms of the increased speculation over Iran, it's hard to find a reason for the price increase other than that."
Over the weekend, The Washington Post newspaper and The New Yorker magazine reported that the White House was examining military options against Tehran, which insists that its controversial nuclear programme is for civilian energy purposes.
Washington and its allies believe Iran is secretly trying to build a nuclear bomb, but the US administration went out of its way to play down the reports about military action.
On Tuesday, Iran's hardline president declared that his country was poised to enter the world's "nuclear club" in defiance of UN Security Council demands, as the Islamic republic announced it had begun small-scale enrichment of uranium.
"Iran will soon join the club of countries that have nuclear technology," state-run television quoted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying in a speech in the northeast of the country.
Aside from Iran, the United States is concerned about the level of its gasoline stockpiles, which have been in decline for more than one month.
Traders anticipate that this Wednesday's US Department of Energy's weekly energy report will show that gasoline stocks fell by 2.2 million barrels last week.
This comes before the start of the US summer driving season, beginning late May, when drivers take to the roads on vacation.
According to an official projection published Tuesday, US drivers face a long, hot summer of expensive gasoline at the height of the annual holiday season.
Retail gasoline prices are expected to rise 25 cents from last year to average 2.62 dollars a gallon over April to September, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a monthly outlook report.
Regarding Nigeria, meanwhile, traders remained uncertain over the resumption in the country's output lost because of militant attacks on foreign-owned oil installations in the southern Niger Delta.
"Shortages of Nigerian light sweet crude oil are of particular concern as the run-up to the US driving season approaches with the gasoline market already looking tight," said Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish.
He added that "geopolitical tensions look capable of bringing about further tests of the 70-dollars-per-barrel region in the weeks ahead".
AFP 04 11 06 1959 GMTCopyright © 1994-2006 Agence France-Presse. All Rights Reserved.
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