LONDON, Aug 19: Oil prices climbed further on Friday as traders bought back into the market, while Ecuador’s suspension of crude exports added to fears over tight global supply, dealers said. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in September, jumped $1.28 to $64.55 per barrel in early trade.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in October gained $1.39 to $63.79 a barrel.

Supply concerns have heightened in recent weeks by problem-hit US refineries, pushing New York futures to a historic high of $67.10 last Friday, and to $66.85 in London on Monday. Prices had lost as much as $5 since hitting those record levels — but regained some ground on Friday as buyers returned.

“Given the extent of the move down, it is hardly surprising that there would be a bit of pullback,” Fimat analyst Mike Fitzpatrick said. Sam Tilley, analyst at the Sucden brokerage firm, added: “Market players decided that the fall in crude this week offered a good buying opportunity.”

New York futures dipped as low as $62.25 on Thursday, a drop of 7.0 per cent from this week’s high on Monday of $67 per barrel. Traders, meanwhile, were absorbing news that Ecuador had halted exports amid violent protests in two oil-rich Amazon provinces — where striking workers and the local population have taken over three dozen oil wells to force negotiations for a bigger share of oil revenues.

That has sent shockwaves through the market, according to Dariusz Kowalczyk, a Hong Kong-based investment strategist at CFC Seymour Securities.

Ecuador is South America’s fifth-largest oil producer and more than half of its exports go to the United States. The country normally produces 200,000 barrels of oil a day.

“The market is concerned about short supplies and even 200,000 barrels is able to make people nervous,” Kowalczyk said.

Oil traders were also absorbing a report from Goldman Sachs in which the US finance house revised upward its forecasts for oil prices, citing a lack of investment in the sector.—AFP