LONDON, Aug 23 (AFP) - World oil prices rose Monday on supply concerns amid fighting in Iraq and a report that Yukos could face another crippling tax bill, traders said.
The price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in October rose 29 cents to 43.83 dollars per barrel at the start of formal trading here.
New York`s main contract, light sweet crude oil for delivery in October, the new benchmark, won 26 cents to 46.98 dollars per barrel in pre-opening electronic trading.
The September contract had closed at 47.86 dollars on Friday, having reached an all-time high of 49.40 dollars earlier in the day.
Prices rose Monday even as oil exports from the south of Iraq returned to their normal level of 85,000 barrels an hour.
Exports were reduced to between 36,000 and 42,000 barrels a day for 13 days following Shiite militia threats to blow up oil pipelines feeding Iraq`s two southern terminals, but normal output resumed Saturday, an official of the South Oil Company told AFP.
In Iraq overnight Monday, US helicopter gunships pounded positions held by militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr near Najaf`s Imam Ali shrine, as continued fighting dimmed hope of a peaceful end to the more than two-week standoff.
Sporadic exchanges of fire between militiamen and US troops also erupted overnight.
"The southern pipeline is running once again and that should be slightly bearish," GNI-Man Financial trader Paul Goodhew said.
"But nevertheless, fighting is still continuing in Iraq and also there is a potential additional tax claim from the Russian government against Yukos ... All these things weigh on the market`s mind and prices are up again. The market just believes that there could be further disruptions," he added.
Russian authorities are considering making a three-billion-dollar (2.44-billion-euro) tax claim from a key subsidiary of Yukos, the Russian oil giant already struggling under a massive tax bill, the Financial times reported Monday.
The tax ministry was mulling the claim directly against the subsidiary Yuganskneftegaz, the newspaper reported a government official as saying.
This would be in addition to an existing claim directly from Yukos for 3.4 billion dollars and possibly billions more.
Yuganskneftegaz pumps 60 percent of the oil in Yukos, Russia`s largest oil producer, whose assets were frozen after it received the 3.4-billion-dollar tax bill for 2000.