NEW YORK, Dec 17 (AFP) - Global crude prices boiled over Friday on fear of tight US winter fuel supplies and because of a tape apparently by Osama bin Laden calling for attacks on Gulf oil supplies.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in January, soared 2.10 dollars to 46.28 dollars a barrel. Brent North Sea crude for January surged 1.96 dollars to 43.39 dollars.
US intelligence has concluded "with high confidence" that Osama Bin Laden made the message on an Internet website in which he called on his fighters to strike Gulf oil supplies and warned Saudi leaders of an uprising, a US intelligence official said.
An audio message, attributed to the Al-Qaeda leader and posted on an Islamic website, said: "Take jihad (holy war) to stop (the Americans) getting hold of (the oil). Concentrate your operations on the oil, in particular in Iraq and the Gulf."
"I think this Bin Laden tape that basically addresses oil caused people some concern," said Fimat USA trader Mike Fitzpatrick.
Also, "they are talking about a major weather event in the northeast, perhaps Monday, and the return of some cold weather," he said.
But the underlying cause, Fitzpatrick said, was the unexpected tightness of US commercial crude oil and fuel inventories.
In the week ending December 10, inventories of crude oil eased 100,000 barrels to 293.8 million, about average for the season, the Department of Energy said.
Stockpiles of distillates -- mostly heating oil and diesel -- were unchanged at 119.3 million barrels, just below average.
Inventories of heating oil, a major concern with the onset of winter, eased 100,000 barrels to 49.9 million while diesel rose 500,000 barrels to 68.3 million.
Analysts disagreed about the outlook.
Fitzpatrick said he expected prices to dip.
"I think at some point we have to sell off again," he said.
"With the state of the world today the next headline could change all that but with all things being equal and barring any unforeseen events I think it will probably be lower next week."
Refco market analyst Marshall Steeves agreed that the cold weather and the bin Laden tape had boosted prices.
But "(prices) are going to remain strong until the end of the month," Steeves said.
Societe Generale analyst Frederic Lasserre said the main influence on the market was the US weather.
"It's the gasoil contracts in Europe and heating oil in the United States which are leading the whole complex," he said.
"From a technical view point we broke some important resistance levels, so the rally accelerated, and as it's Friday, no one wants to be short of oil over the weekend."
Further supporting the market, armed men attacked a pipeline south of Baghdad and the Islamic extremist group Moussab al-Zarqaoui said it had sabotaged a separate pipeline north of the Iraqi capital.
Russia, meanwhile, pushed ahead with a planned weekend auction of the core asset held by oil giant Yukos despite a US court order suspending the sale.
A US bankruptcy court judge in Houston, Texas late Thursday ordered a 10-day halt to the planned sale of embattled Yukos's main oil-pumping division, Yuganskneftegaz.
The order by Judge Letitia Clark barred Gazpromneft, a subsidiary of Russian state gas monopoly Gazprom widely expected to win control of Yugansk, from taking part in Sunday's auction.
But officials in Moscow organising the sale rejected the ruling, arguing that the US court had no jurisdiction there.
12/17/2004 20:48 GMT - AFP