Oil climbs to new historic high $118

04/23/2008

London — The price of New York crude rocketed to a record high point of $118.05 per barrel yesterday, lifted by unrest in Nigeria, weakness of the dollar and Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’s (Opec) reluctance to raise short-term output.

Late yesterday, New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, stood at $117.77, up 29 cents from the price on Monday. The contract expires at the close.

London’s Brent North Sea crude for June hit a historic pinnacle at $115.03 a barrel. It later stood at $114.67, up 24 cents.

“For the moment, there does not seem to be anything stopping the price juggernaut we are seeing in energy,” MF Global analyst Ed Meir said.

The Opec plans to lift production capacity by five million barrels per day (bpd) by 2012, the cartel’s secretary general Abdalla Salem El-Badri said on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum in Rome, El-Badri also said that the cartel aimed to boost production capacity by nine million bpd by 2020.

But the 13-nation Opec cartel, which produces 40 percent of the world’s oil, has insisted that there was no shortage of supplies in the market.

“The market is still fairly tight, with Opec reluctant to hike output, blaming speculators and the broad weakness in the dollar for driving prices higher,” said Sucden analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov.

Analysts said reports of pipeline sabotage in Nigeria has helped push prices to record heights. AFP

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