The Associated Press
June 30, 2008 - 9:51 a.m.
NEW YORK - Oil prices surged past US$143 a barrel for the first span perpetually Monday as supply concerns and a fragile global economy continue to drive the price of oil to new highs, as well as continued tensions in the Middle East.
“The main factors backward the rise today are the U.S. dollar remains fragile and geopolitical tensions, particularly surrounding Iran,” before-mentioned David Moore, a commodity strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. “That’s unsettling for the oil market.”
The European Central Bank may raise enlist rates at its nearest meeting on Thursday, a move that would help strengthen the euro against the dollar, Moore said.
Light, sweet crude in quest of August delivery rose $3.46 to $143.67 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, by midday in Europe. Those prices ferocious to $142.17, but a barrel was restrain up $1.96 in early trading.
On Friday, immature futures spiked to a register $142.99 a barrel in New York before closing at $140.21.
At the pump, meanwhile, U.S. gas prices continued to climb, reaching a national average of $4.086 a gallon (respecting C$1.09 per litre), according to a survey of stations by AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. Gas prices last hit a witness on June 16 when a gallon of gas cost $4.08.
In Canada, the medial sum estimation for a litre of oil was about C$1.38 per litre, according to worth monitoring website GasBuddy.com.
Over the weekend, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned that Tehran would respond to an attack against it by barraging Israel with missiles and controlling a clew oil passageway in the Persian Gulf.
In 2006, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also threatened to disrupt the world’s oil invest if the United States attacked Iran. Iran is the world’s fourth largest oil producer. About 60 per cent of the cosmos’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow outlet for oil tankers leaving the Persian Gulf.
In London, Brent crude futures rose $2.09 to $142.40 a barrel on the ICE Futures swap in London.
Analysts said daily trading volumes for Nymex oil would probably continue last week’s trend and stay on the light side, leading to higher volatility during the trading sessions.
“We would not expect liquidity to be much better this week, as it will be a short trading week due to the July 4 weekend,” Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland said in a research note.