Oil prices hit fresh 10-month highs today as a huge blast at a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Algeria closed the country's largest refinery and main oil export terminal.
The shutdown fuelled concern over global supplies as freezing temperatures test wafer-thin fuel stocks in the United States.
US light crude futures for February delivery fetched $35.69 a barrel, up 62 cents, after earlier hitting a new 10-month peak at $35.90, the highest level since the US invasion of Iraq in March. London Brent crude futures rose 45 cents to $31.02 a barrel.
Prices marched higher after the Algerian explosion, which ripped through the vast petrochemical plant in the port city of Skikda, killing at least 23 people and shutting down all activity at the oil and gas refinery complex.
Officials said they believed a boiler at one of the gas units was the origin of the blast, which was felt for kilometres and destroyed three liquefied natural gas (LNG) trains.
Algeria was the world's second largest exporter of LNG in 2002, and is a big supplier of oil products to Europe.
US crude prices have shot up more than $8 a barrel, or 30 per cent, since late September when OPEC agreed to cut official output limits by 900,000 barrels per day.
Since then, demand has risen with the onset of the northern hemisphere winter and US fuel inventories have fallen to the lowest levels since the mid-1970s.