US crude prices struck a new record high today on persistent concerns that soaring demand will outpace global supplies at a time when traders fear a sabotage attack on the Middle East's oil industry.
US light crude reached $41.65 a barrel, the highest price since the New York Mercantile Exchange launched its crude contract in 1983.
Low US gasoline inventories ahead of peak demand in the summer months, a surge in global consumption driven by healthy economic growth and worries that instability in the Middle East may disrupt vital supplies from the region have driven crude prices up $9 a barrel, or 28 per cent, since the end of last year.
The price rally has raised fears of inflation in industrialised countries and a slowdown of economic growth.
The OPEC producers' cartel, which controls half of world crude exports, has pledged to keep the global 80 million barrels-per-day market adequately supplied. But some oil dealers are sceptical OPEC has enough spare production capacity to tip the supply-and-demand balance.
OPEC President Purnomo Yusgiantoro said today: "High oil prices can cause recession. We are not happy with high oil prices," Mr Purnomo, who is also Indonesia's oil minister, said in Jakarta.
Most OPEC countries, except top exporter Saudi Arabia, are producing flat out. The group is currently pumping more than two million bpd above its official production ceiling of 23.5 million bpd to feed demand, which has been especially strong in China and the United States.