Oil Prices vaulted to a 21-year high on Friday on fears that an attack on West Asian oil facilities may stress world fuel supplies already eroded by heady demand growth in China and the US.US light crude rose 37 cents to $41.45 a barrel, an all-time high in the 21-year history of the New York Mercantile Exchange contract. London Brent added 19 cents to $38.68 a barrel. Warnings from a senior Russian official that oil exports from the world’s second biggest exporter have hit a ceiling after many years of growth underlined the strain on global supply.‘‘Realistically, the capacity of suppliers does not today meet growing demand in places such as China or India. And you have to take into account the state of affairs in Iraq,’’ Semyon Vainshtok, head of Russia’s oil pipeline monopoly told Reuters.Economic expansion in China, bolstered by renewed US growth, has placed world supplies under increasing strain, leaving the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, bar top producer Saudi Arabia, pumping almost flat out to meet demand. Oil’s price surge has alarmed consuming nations worried that economic growth could suffer.Allowing for inflation, prices are about half those during the oil price shock that followed the 1979 Iranian revolution. Crude averaged $78 a barrel during 1980 when adjusted for inflation to 2002 prices, according to oil major BP. Crude in money-of-the-day averaged $35.69 a barrel in 1980, BP said. —(Reuters)
