LONDON, Feb 24: Oil prices spiked more than two dollars on Friday to above $62 per barrel as supply concerns engulfed the market.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi said that output from the world’s number one producer was unaffected by a foiled “terrorist” attack on Friday against a processing plant in the oil-rich eastern province.

At least two would-be attackers were killed when they were stopped by security forces, oil sources said.

News of an explosion and gunfire near the oil installation added support to prices, which were already surging on supply concerns over Nigeria, Iran and Iraq.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, soared $2.16 to $62.70 per barrel in pit trading. After the Saudi explosion, New York prices spiked to $62.80, up by $2.26 on Thursday’s closing price.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for April delivery gained $1.79 at $62.33 per barrel in electronic deals on Friday.

Prior to the Saudi attack, analysts at the Sucden brokerage firm in London had said on Friday: “Light crude futures pushed higher, with the market focusing on the situation in Nigeria and Iran rather than plentiful crude and gasoline stocks.”

Prices had fallen on Thursday on data that had revealed healthy stockpiles of US energy. However concerns about output cuts in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, resurfaced on Friday.

“Mounting violence in Iraq and an unresolved dispute between the West and Iran over its nuclear ambitions” were supporting prices also, Sucden analysts said.

Nigeria, the world’s sixth-biggest exporter of oil, produces light, sweet crude, which is easier and cheaper to refine than the heavy, sour crude produced by oil kingpin Saudi Arabia.

Analysts say that tension over Iran’s nuclear programme could lead to disruption of the country’s oil exports. Iran exports 2.6 million bpd and is the second-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after Saudi Arabia.

A Saudi security expert said last September that the kingdom, which sits on a quarter of global oil reserves, had boosted spending on the protection of its oil industry to as much as $1.5 billion per year. Saudi Arabia currently pumps around 9.5 million barrels of oil per day and has an output capacity of 11 million bpd.—AFP