NEW YORK (AFP) - Oil prices gushed to new record highs, pressured by fears of interrupted supplies from Nigeria and the Gulf of Mexico in a market straining to meet voracious global demand.
New York's light sweet crude for delivery in November finished at 53.31 dollars a barrel, up 64 cents and the first settlement above 53.
It touched a record high during the day of 53.40 dollars.
Brent North Sea hit a record 49.75 dollars before closing at 49.71 dollars, up 81 cents on the day.
Fimat USA broker John Kilduff said the market was swayed by concerns over production in oil-rich Nigeria and over supplies from the Gulf of Mexico, where output is still recovering from a hurricane-bashing.
"The Nigerian situation is recycling its way through the market. It looks like we are set for a nationwide strike there Monday," Kilduff said.
"There are continuing problems out in the Gulf (of Mexico), which is giving the rally no respite," he added.
The leader of Nigeria's Labour Congress (NLC) said that a threatened nationwide general strike against rising fuel prices would begin Monday after talks with authorities collapsed.
NLC president Adams Oshiomhole, speaking after a meeting with Nigerian governors and oil sector executives, said in Abuja Friday: "I regret to have to say that this meeting was not fruitful because there was no concrete proposal on the table."
"The strike will go on Monday. It is very painful that we couldn't find other solutions," he added.
Previous general strikes have done little to disrupt Nigeria's exports of around 2.6 million barrels of crude per day, but the latest action comes at a time when oil unions are already up in arms over planned job losses.
Workers at the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell launched a separate two-day strike on Thursday, though the company said production had not yet been affected.
"US oil prices will most likely be in the 60-70 dollar price band next month," said Investec Securities analyst Bruce Evers in London.
In the Gulf of Mexico, 475,176 barrels per day, equal to 28 percent of the daily production, was still shut in as rigs tried to recover from multiple hurricanes, according to the US Department of the Interior.
In the past four weeks, the region had lost 17 million barrels, equal to 2.8 percent of annual production.
Analysts said supply worries were having a magnified impact on prices because of concerns about unbridled consumption in the United States and Asia as well as the low level of commercial oil inventories.
"The way things are at the moment it's conceivable that if the strike in Nigeria goes ahead you could see 60 dollars a barrel," said Simon Wardell, senior energy analyst at the World Markets Research Centre.
"We kind of lose sight of the fact that this is a demand-led price run," said Wardell.
"We do have these supply worries -- we've had them all year -- but in terms of the amount of oil lost from the market because of them, it's very, very low. The underlying reason for all this is the increased demand this year."
Oil prices were expected to fall below 50 dollars a barrel next year on expectations of smooth elections in Iraq, the president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Purnomo Yusgiantoro, said Friday.
Although prices are at record highs, adjusted for inflation they remain far below the levels reached in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution when prices surged to upwards of 80 dollars a barrel in today's money.