(Releads, adds dollar movement in paragraph 18, updates
prices)
By Fayen Wong
PERTH, April 28 (Reuters) - Oil leapt more than $1 to a
record high near $120 a barrel on Monday after workers pushed
ahead with a two-day strike that shut a major North Sea oil
pipeline supplying about half of Britain's oil.
Fresh violence in Nigeria and simmering tensions between
the United States and major oil exporter Iran also helped to
offset the impact of a rising U.S. dollar to boost oil prices.
U.S. light crude for June delivery <CLc1> rose $1.01 to
$119.53 by 0603 GMT, adding to Friday's nearly $2.50 surge and
briefly striking a lifetime high of $119.93 a barrel. Prices
are up almost 25 percent since the start of the year.
London Brent crude <LCOc1> rose 83 cents to $117.17.
"Supply-side concerns underpinned the oil price," David
Moore, a commodity strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of
Australia, said in a note to clients.
"Oil supplies from Nigeria have been disrupted by militant
attacks and a strike by some oil workers. A strike at the
Grangemouth refinery in Scotland has caused significant
disruption to supplies from the North Sea," he said.
The 700,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Forties crude oil pipeline
was closed on Sunday as workers went on strike at the
neighbouring 210,000 bpd refinery after talks over pensions
fell through, operator BP <BP.L> said. []
The refinery, owned by international chemical company
Ineos, produces a tenth of Britain's petrol and diesel but also
supplies vital steam and power to BP's Kinneil plant that
processes the crude oil coming ashore from 70 North Sea fields.
The government has said that there will be no overall
shortages of fuel but conceded that there may be some local
supply problems.
BP said that assuming it got power back as soon as the
strike ended and Forties fields resumed production rapidly, the
pipeline could be back in operation within 24 hours but might
take a few more days to get back to full flow.
In Nigeria, unidentified gunmen killed five policemen and
seized several weapons in a raid on a police station in the
oil-rich southern Nigerian state of Rivers on Sunday, a police
spokeswoman said.
The attack comes just two days after a strike and attacks
by rebels forced Nigeria's two largest oil firms, Exxon Mobil
<XOM.N> and Royal Dutch Shell <RDSa.L>, to shut some 369,000
bpd of production.
A step up in tensions between U.S. and the world's
fourth-largest crude exporter Iran also fuelled oil's gain.
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 over its nuclear ambitions. []
Iran denied there had been any confrontation between its
forces and a U.S. ship, Iranian media reported, and said on
Sunday a "disastrous situation" facing the United States in
Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with Washington's domestic
issues, made any U.S. attack on the Islamic Republic unlikely.
[]
Tensions between Washington and the OPEC nation last year
helped send oil to 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.
Concerns over supply disruptions have limited the impact of
a rising U.S. dollar, which climbed to a two-month high against
the yen on Monday, boosted by the growing view that the Federal
Reserve may stop cutting interest rates [].
(Editing by Jonathan Leff and Ben Tan)
