* Oil hits new record over $147 a barrel
* Potential supply disruption from Nigeria and Brazil
* Iran tests more missiles in the Gulf
(Updates prices, adds Petrobras strike to go ahead,
details)
By Santosh Menon
LONDON, July 11 (Reuters) - Oil leapt $5 to a record high
above $147 a barrel on Friday amid growing worries of threats
to supplies from Iran and Nigeria and a strike by Brazilian oil
workers next week.
The gains were trimmed back later in the day, however, as
dealers focused on U.S. economic turmoil that has already
triggered a significant slowdown in oil consumption in the
world's biggest energy user.
U.S. crude <CLc1> rose $2.15 to $143.80 a barrel by 1648
GMT after climbing as high as $147.27 earlier in the day. It
rose $5.60 or 4 percent a barrel on Thursday in a late burst of
buying activity. London Brent crude <LCOc1> was up $1.52 at
$143.55 a barrel.
"The market is just so sensitive today over Iran, Nigeria,
Brazil," a floor trader on the New York Mercantile Exchange
said. "But you are also seeing a big slide on stock market
prices and this is driving some fears to oil traders."
A spate of missile tests by Iran, the world's
fourth-largest oil exporter, in the last two days against a
backdrop of rising tensions with Israel and the United States
has left the oil markets worried.
Iran has threatened to strike back at Tel Aviv as well as
U.S. interests in a key oil shipping route if it is attacked
over its nuclear programme, which Israel and the West fears is
aimed at making nuclear weapons.
Adding to geopolitical jitters, the Movement for the
Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the main militant group in
Nigeria's oil-producing region, said it was abandoning a
cease-fire to protest against a British offer to help tackle
lawlessness in the region.
Rebel attacks on oil infrastructure in Nigeria, the world's
eighth-biggest exporter, have also been partly responsible for
the nearly 50 percent rise in prices this year.
And workers at Brazil's Petrobras <PETR4.SA><PBR.N> will
launch a five-day strike next week that would affect all 42
Campos basin offshore platforms, which account for more than 80
percent of daily oil output of around 1.8 million barrels, a
union official said. []
Oil prices have risen seven-fold since 2002 amid surging
demand from China and other developing economies. Investors
have also recently flocked to oil and other commodities as a
hedge against rising inflation and a weak dollar.
Concern in the United States that Fannie Mae <FNM.N> and
Freddie Mac <FRE.N>, the nation's largest mortgage financing
providers, could run short of capital added to inflation
worries by reducing the chances of an interest rate hike this
year by the U.S. Federal Reserve, some analysts said.
[]
Oil has continued to rise despite efforts by top exporter
Saudi Arabia to raise production to its highest rate in three
decades in an effort to tame oil prices.
Qatar Oil Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah told Reuters on
Friday that he saw no demand for the additional crude that
Saudi Arabia had pledged to pump.[]
(Additional reporting by Felicia Loo in Singapore, Richard
Valdmanis in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
