LONDON, April 13: The price of Brent North Sea crude oil broke through $70 per barrel for the first time on Thursday, fuelled by heightened tensions between Iran and the international community.

The price of Brent crude for June delivery jumped 34 cents to reach $70.20 per barrel at 16:45 GMT.

It later stood at $70.18, an increase of 32 cents from Wednesday’s close.

“It’s another milestone,” said Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish, who added that “Brent is leading the way at the moment”.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, was trading up 33 cents at $68.95 after reaching an intra-day peak of $69.

But adjusted for inflation, prices remain below levels reached in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution when prices surged to upwards of $80 a barrel in today’s money.

London’s Brent contract has been striking record high points since Monday on market concerns that the US might launch military strikes at uranium facilities in Iran, the world’s fourth largest producer of crude.

Iran repeated Thursday after talks with the head of the UN atomic watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, that it would not bow to demands it freeze uranium enrichment.

The Islamic republic’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, told reporters that the UN Security Council’s call for Iran to return to a freeze on the sensitive work “was not very important”.

Norrish added: “The general picture is that the tightening (gasoline) market and geo-political risks are underpinning further increases in crude oil, despite the very high crude inventory levels.”

The new Brent record beat the previous all-time peak, set on Wednesday, when the contract reached $69.97 on news of falling US gasoline stockpiles.

In turn, that beat the previous record $68.89 reached on August 30, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina battered oil facilities in the US Gulf Coast. The same day New York crude reached a record $70.85 per barrel.

Analysts contend that action against Iran could lead to severe disruptions in its crude exports.

Prior to Brent’s spike above $70.0 on Thursday, crude futures had traded in negative territory for much of Thursday on profit-taking ahead of the Easter holiday weekend.

Markets in New York and London are closed on Friday, while oil trading resumes on Monday.

Meanwhile the US Department of Energy had revealed on Wednesday that gasoline or petrol inventories slumped by 3.9 million barrels to 207.9 million in the week to April 7.

That contrasted with market expectations of a fall of just 2.1 million barrels. Market watchers said the figures reinforced concerns about gasoline constraints heading into the peak-demand US summer holiday season, beginning late May, when many American drivers take to the roads on vacation.

Brent North Sea, a light, sweet crude oil, is used to price more than 65 per cent of the world’s traded crude oil supplies, according to London’s International Petroleum Exchange.

Although consumers have access to large supplies of heavy, sour crude, refiners prefer light, sweet oil because of its low sulphur content and relatively high yields of gasoline, heating oil as well as diesel and jet fuel.—AFP