LONDON, Aug 16 (AFP) - Oil prices climbed to a new record high level of 44.11 dollars a barrel in London on Monday as traders took fright at reports of an attack on an oil well in southern Iraq.
Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in September climbed 22 cents a barrel to break above the symbolic 44-dollar threshold for the first time here. Hours earlier New York prices had set a new record close to 47 dollars.
"There is a small oil well set on fire by Shiite militia in southern Iraq," said Paul Goodhew, a trader at GNI-Man Financial.
"It is all the market needed to push oil prices higher again. It is a small story but the market is very nervous."
Insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade Sunday at an oil well 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of Amara near the village of Al-Mawil in southern Iraq, the head of Amara's civil defence force said.
"Unknown assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades on an oil well setting it ablaze yesterday (Sunday) at 2:00 pm (1000 GMT)," Lilu Saadun al-Muhamadawi, head of the province's civil defence force told AFP.
"So far it has been impossible to extinguish the fire as this could only be done by using planes."
Iraqi crude exports through southern Iraq have been slashed by militia threats against oil infrastructure amid battles between US troops and Shiite Muslim fighters in the holy city of Najaf.
Iraq shut down a crucial southern oil pipeline for security reasons, a spokesman for the Southern Oil Company said Saturday.
The oil price spike reversed losses seen in early trading here after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claimed victory in a referendum on his future, to the relief of oil markets.
With most votes counted, 58.25 percent of the electorate voted for Chavez to remain in office and 41.74 percent voted for his mandate to be revoked, said Francisco Carrasquero, president of the National Electoral Council.