- Oil prices have reached $40 a barrel in the face of renewed
violence in the Middle East.
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- On New York's Nymex exchange, the price of crude oil
topped out at $40.05, finishing the day at $39.93.
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- The price is not far off an all-time high of $41.15,
reached in October 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait.
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- The rising cost of oil is driving petrol prices higher
worldwide, which could prove to be a factor in November's US presidential
election.
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- The price spike drew an unfavourable response from US
Treasury Secretary John Snow.
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- The rise was "unwelcome and unhelpful", he
told CNBC television.
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- In the UK, the price of oil also climbed towards 13-year
highs, almost reaching $37.
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- Attacks
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- One factor in the concern among traders driving the high
prices is the pictures of US soldiers abusing Iraqis in Baghdad's infamous
Abu Ghraib jail.
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- "There is worry over what will happen at the time
of the (30 June) handover," Dr Leo Drollas of the British Centre for
Global Energy Studies told the BBC.
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- There is also concern at the attack on a Saudi office
of a foreign oil firm earlier in May, which killed six people including
five foreigners.
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- A week earlier, the main oil terminal in the southern
Iraqi port of Basra was attacked.
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- "A security premium has definitely been growing,"
said John Kilduff, senior energy analyst at Fimat USA.
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- "It's become quite clear that the oil industry and
oil infrastructure are in the crosshairs of the insurgents in Iraq and
terrorist groups."
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- © BBC MMIV http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3694721.stm
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