Oil briefly rises above $92 a barrel

Crude oil prices rose in Asia Friday — spiking above $92 a barrel at one point — on a rumbling of tensions in the Middle East and renewed concerns about oil supplies.

Lebanese troops fired on Israeli warplanes Thursday, and while a conflict between Israel and Lebanon would not directly affect oil supplies, traders worry any hostilities in the Middle East would draw in oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Also, the United States announced Thursday new sanctions against Iran, targeting the elite Revolutionary Guards, which Washington accuses of supporting terrorism by backing Shiite militants in Iraq. Any confrontation between the world's largest oil consumer and its fourth largest oil producer has the potential to roil markets.

And amid the tensions, supply concerns have been exacerbated.

"The market is really quite worried about supply," said Tetsu Emori, commodity markets fund manager at ASTMAX Futures Co. in Tokyo. "Oil is quite imbalanced. It is quite tight."

Light, sweet crude for December delivery rose $1.26 to $91.72 a barrel in electronic trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange by late afternoon in Singapore. It briefly rose to a new trading record of $92.22 during Asian trading.

The Nymex crude contract jumped $3.36 to settle at $90.46 a barrel Thursday in the U.S., closing above $90 a barrel for the first time.

The combination of supply worries and geopolitical concerns has pushed crude oil prices up more than 6 percent since Tuesday.

Prices first jumped sharply Wednesday after the Energy Information Administration reported that oil inventories fell 5.3 million barrels last week when analysts had expected them to grow 300,000 barrels.

That report reversed a three-day downward price trend, and put energy traders back in a bullish mood, analysts said.

On Thursday, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Secretary General Abdalla el-Badri told The Wall Street Journal Asia the cartel is not in discussions to boost production by 500,000 barrels. The comments counter rumors that Saudi Arabia is pushing for another production increase after pressuring the group into one of similar size that goes into effect Nov. 1.

And while U.S. crude stocks fell to a nine-month low last week, Dow Jones Newswires reported that Oil Movements, a company that tracks oil tanker traffic, said the extra crude shipments from OPEC members next month will grow more slowly than anticipated.

Energy traders also remain concerned a threatened incursion by Turkish armed forces into Iraq in search of Kurdish rebels would cut oil supplies out of northern Iraq. Turkey has warned it will decide whether to cross into Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish guerrillas regardless of U.S. objections, and U.S.-made Turkish fighter jets patrol the skies near the Iraqi border.

December Brent crude rose $1.41 to $88.89 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange in London.

Nymex heating oil futures rose 1.79 cents to $2.4263 a gallon while gasoline prices added 2.89 cents to $2.2647 a gallon. November natural gas futures fell 3.8 cents to $7.150 per 1,000 cubic feet.