August 14, 2007	Tuesday	Rajab 29, 1428

LONDON, Aug 13: World oil prices jumped by more than a dollar on Monday after slumping last week on concerns about the US high-risk sub-prime mortgage sector, traders said.

The price of London's Brent North Sea crude for September delivery surged $1.22 to $71.61 per barrel in electronic deals.

New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in September, soared $1.48 to $72.95 per barrel in floor trading.

“Crude futures were higher (on Monday), recovering from losses at the end of last week, amid improved sentiment on global financial markets,” said analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov at the Sucden brokerage.

Crude futures had plunged in value last week, with London Brent diving by 7.4 per cent and New York oil sliding by 5.8 per cent, as traders feared that global energy demand may weaken amid the US sub-prime crisis.

Analysts at US investment bank Goldman Sachs said that the recent oil price losses, which were driven by speculators exiting the market, would be short-lived.

They added that prices would find support from tight global supplies and fierce demand for crude oil from the likes of China and the United States -- the biggest global energy consumers.

“With the continuing tightening of forward fundamentals, it is increasingly likely that the recent price declines driven by speculative length liquidation will prove to be short-lived,” Goldman Sachs analysts said.

Prices were battered last week because players feared oil demand might slump in the wake of a global credit crunch.

Ongoing concerns over US sub-prime loan defaults sparked a bout of risk aversion, and analysts said the troubled US housing sector could well end up harming the worldwide economy.

Sub-prime, or high-risk, loans are those made to borrowers who do not qualify for conventional loans because they have a poor or no credit history.

Last Friday, Brent fell as low as $68.95 per barrel, the lowest point since the start of June.

But the previous week, New York crude had rocketed to a historic high of $78.77 per barrel on news of declining crude stockpiles in the United States, which is the world's biggest consumer of energy.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a decree late on Sunday which, in a surprise move, replaced oil minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh with the head of the national oil company, Gholam Hossein Nozari.—AFP