Price of oil touches record above $75 a barrel

By Staff (89619)

Saturday, April 22, 2006
© Copyright 2013 Gwinnett Daily Post

NEW YORK - Crude-oil prices broke through $75 a barrel to hit a new record Friday, fueled by concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions and tight U.S. gasoline supplies.

Prices at the pump also kept rising, with the average price of a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline at $2.855, up 3 cents from a day earlier and more than 60 cents higher than a year ago, according to AAA's daily fuel gauge report.

Crude prices, which are more than 40 percent higher than a year ago, have risen 8.4 percent from Thursday's closing price - the biggest weeklong jump since the week of June 17, 2005, when crude futures rose 9 percent.

Analysts say oil prices are likely to climb even higher in the weeks ahead as worries grow about how international pressure on Iran, OPEC's No. 2 oil producer, will affect its crude output. Rebel disruptions of oil production in Nigeria, the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports, also pose a risk to supply.

''You put all these headlines together, you see the situation is getting charged up and getting out of control. That's why oil traders and speculators are having a field day - this is exactly the kind of environment that speculators want to operate in,'' said Oppenheimer & Co. oil analyst Fadel Gheit.

Light, sweet crude for June delivery rose $1.48 to settle at a record $75.17 a barrel Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after peaking at an all-time trading high of $75.35. The May contract, which expired Thursday, had settled at $71.95 on Thursday.

Accounting for inflation, prices are still about 20 percent below the records reached in 1981, when supplies became tight after a revolution in Iran and a war between Iraq and Iran.

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