Oil jumps more than $2 on U.S.-Iran tensions
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices jumped more than $2 to above $118 a barrel on Friday on supply disruptions in Nigeria and the North Sea and fresh tensions between the United States and Iran.
U.S. crude futures settled $2.46 higher at $118.52 a barrel, after hitting $119.55 in earlier activity, near the all-time peak of $119.90 reached on Tuesday.
London Brent crude gained $2 to settle at $116.34 a barrel, after hitting a record $117.56 earlier.
A cargo ship hired by the U.S. military fired warning shots at boats suspected to be Iranian, the U.S. Navy said on Friday, underscoring tension in the Gulf as the Pentagon sharpened its warnings to Tehran.
Iran denied there had been any confrontation between its forces and a U.S. ship, Iranian media reported.
Tensions between Washington and the OPEC nation last year helped send oil to then-record highs. Crude prices have surged more than five-fold since 2002 as supplies struggle to keep pace with rising demand in emerging economies, such as China.
Oil also found support on Friday from lost in Nigerian production due to a workers strike and rebel attacks and from disruptions caused by a planned refinery strike in Scotland.
In the North Sea, BP Plc (BP.L) said it had begun shutting down its U.K. Forties oil pipeline in preparation for a two-day strike at a major Scottish refinery this weekend.
The 700,000-barrel-a-day Forties pipeline carries about half of Britain's North Sea oil production.
"You have everything coming together and that's lifting us off again," said Tom Bentz, analyst for BNP Paribas Commodity Futures in New York.
A strike by Nigerian workers at Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) forced the company to shut down some 200,000 barrels per day of crude oil output, a senior union official said.
Nigerian rebels sabotaged a Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) oil pipeline in the Niger Delta late on Thursday.
The company, which had already shut 169,000 bpd of Bonny Light crude oil output after a pipeline attack there a week ago, was assessing damage to the line.
"Our candid advice to the oil majors is that they should not waste their time repairing any lines as we will continue to sabotage them," the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in an emailed statement.
(Reporting by Randy Fabi in London; Matthew Robinson and Robert Gibbons in New York; Editing by Walter Bagley)
