LONDON, Aug 18: Oil prices rose on Monday, with dealers taking fright at a presumed sabotage attack on a key Iraqi oil pipeline as well as a worrying upsurge in ethnic unrest in Nigeria’s main oil region.

The price of reference Brent North Sea crude oil for October delivery rose 43 cents per barrel to $29.42.

New York’s light sweet crude benchmark September contract showed a gain of 25 cents to $31.30 per barrel during early deals.

Iraq’s main oil pipeline from its northern oilfields around Kirkuk to the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan was still ablaze on Monday, three days after unknown assailants blew up a section near Baiji.

“People had been waiting for Iraqi exports to build up to 1.5 million barrels per day at some time during August — that looks very unlikely now,” said Investec analyst Bruce Evers.

“They are saying it is going to be between 10 days and four weeks to repair it (the pipeline), and I would have thought Iraq is so lawless now that it is more likely to be four weeks.”

However price increases remained limited, “because everyone knows that this pipeline can and will be repaired at some stage,” added GNI trader Keith Pascall.

“There is a definite reluctance not to sell the market, but equally there is a reluctance to really going long,” he noted.

Also of worry to dealers was escalating conflict between ethnic militants and security forces in Nigeria’s oil centre of Warri.—AFP