Oil price hits new high
Motorists were today facing further pain on the forecourt after crude oil prices rose to a new high of more than 59 US dollars a barrel.
The latest increase in the cost of US light crude came after ongoing supply worries were compounded by a threat to Western consulates in Nigeria, which is Africa’s largest oil producer and the fifth biggest source of US oil imports.
Last week drivers filling up in many UK regions were paying an average of almost 86p a litre for unleaded with the cost of diesel nearer to 90p.
Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation, warned there was likely to be an inevitable impact on petrol prices.
He said: “We are likely to see more increases at the pumps as the oil price goes up. All we can hope for is that one of the chains break rank, as some of the supermarkets have done in the past.”
Mr King added: “The difference between now and the fuel protests of 2000 is that motorists are aware that these increases are down to world prices rather than tax increases.”
At one point in Asian trading, the cost of crude oil for July delivery reached 59.23 US dollars a barrel, a rise of 76 cents from Friday’s close and the second straight day that oil has set intraday records. On London’s International Petroleum Exchange, Brent leapt 77 cents to 58.53 US dollars a barrel.
While oil futures are more than 50% higher than a year ago, they are still well below the inflation-adjusted high above 90 US dollars a barrel set in 1980.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries failed to lift the market last week when it agreed to raise its daily output quota to 28 million barrels a day because its members had already been unofficially exceeding that level.
