INSTANT VIEW: Crude roars $9 higher to fresh peak

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil prices rose more than $9 a barrel to a record $137.70 a barrel, the biggest gain in dollar terms in the history of the market.

Dealers said the gains were due to weakness in the dollar, tensions in the Middle East, and bullish forecasts from big investment banks like Morgan Stanley -- which said Friday oil could hit $150 a barrel by early July.

ANALYST COMMENTS:

JUDITH DWARKIN, CHIEF ECONOMIST, ROSS SMITH ENERGY GROUP,

CALGARY:

"One word: inexplicable."

"The backdrop to the current market is falling crude demand in the U.S. -- it looks like this will be the third year in a row of negative growth in crude demand -- plummeting gasoline demand in the U.S., increasing stocks at Cushing, all the things that would normally be bearish for prices. But we're seeing prices catapult ahead."

"Yesterday's surge in the WTI price occurred well after the U.S. dollar had its little bump, so to attribute that to the fares of the dollar would seem to be incorrect."

"Bullish expectations and maintaining prices at the levels they are now depend increasingly on non-OECD demand growth holding up and that really depends on the subsidies on retail product prices that governments are paying in those emerging economies. It's a huge transfer of wealth from the emerging world to oil producers"