NEW YORK, Aug 13 (AFP) - World oil prices tore to all-time highs Friday as tropical storms thundered near oil platforms, oil-rich Venezuela faced a strike risk and Iraq fighting raged.
New York's benchmark light sweet contract for delivery in September roared 80 cents higher to 46.30 dollars a barrel, smashing through 46 dollars for the first time.
London's Brent North Sea crude oil for September soared 91 cents to 43.20 dollars, breaking 43 dollars for the first time.
Prices sizzled as fears grew that the world's producers are already pumping at full stretch to meet hot global demand, meaning any disruption would cause a shortfall.
A slew of risks faced traders: tropical storms, a vote in Venezuela that could lead to a strike, Iraqi bloodshed possibly leading to pipeline attacks, and the threat of terrorist attacks before the Olympics.
The market sweated as Tropical Storm Bonnie and Hurricane Charley charged through the Gulf of Mexico, which is dotted with oil platforms, industry analysts said.
Charley was the more serious threat, said Wachovia economist Jason Schenker. "It's much stronger and it's going through the Gulf, causing some production disruption," he said.
Many traders were buying oil as a precaution ahead of a recall referendum on Sunday directed at Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The vote has raised fears of strike action in the oil industry.
"There is some fear there could be disturbances as a result," said Refco market analyst Marshall Steeves.
"We will see."
The fifth-largest crude exporter, Venezuela produces between 2.5 million and 2.6 million barrels per day, according to analysts, and about 15 percent of the oil imported by the United States.
Russian oil titan Yukos -- facing a bankruptcy threat because of a massive tax bill -- further undermined confidence in oil supplies.
But the outlook improved a little as a Western bank was asked to mediate in the Yukos oil saga.
The decision followed heavy pressure from US officials on President Vladimir Putin's administration to come clean about what it planned to do with Yukos amid fears of disruption in oil exports from the world's number two producing nation.
Yukos produces about 1.7 million barrels of oil per day, nearly as much as the maximum output of Iraq.
Iraq painted a grim backdrop.
Thousands of Iraqis descended on the holy city of Najaf after Shiite Muslim militia leader Moqtada Sadr urged his men to fight on even as US and Iraqi forces closed in on his stronghold.
Sadr's uprising has forced the closure of a southern oil pipeline, halving Iraq's crude exports.
"There are also continued worries about Iraq," Schenker said.
"Terrorists might attack pipelines as a retribution (for the attack on Najaf)."
Reports of a fire at a BP refinery in Whiting, Indiana, which was later extinguished, supported prices of gasoline and the rest of the market early in the day, traders said.
Underlying the oil price surge was growing demand fed by a global economic expansion, said Fimat analyst Mike Fitzpatrick.
"I am sure that at some point as prices go higher and higher that is going to eat into it (demand, but apparently it has not yet," he said.
China, the second-biggest oil consumer after the United States, said Friday that its imports of crude oil in the first seven months rose by nearly 40 percent from a year ago as its energy-hungry economy expanded at close to double-digit levels.