Crude oil futures moved to a new high on October 11 as oil workers joined a four-day national strike in Nigeria and some production shutdowns in the Gulf of Mexico could last as long as six months.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil for November delivery rose 33 cents to end at 53.64 dollars a barrel. Meanwhile, the November Brent crude-oil futures contract climbed 95 cents to settle at 50.66 dollars a barrel on London's International Petroleum Exchange.

On Monday, Nigeria's senior oil workers' union joined a four-day national strike. While the oil workers' union said it wouldn't cut production during the protests, the market remained very concerned because the strike took place amid threats by a popular rebel leader's pledge to take back the rich Niger Delta oil fields if peace talks with the government failed. Nigeria pumped about 2.

5 million barrels per day and its low-sulfur crude oil was particularly desirable by American and other refiners.

Traders were also keeping their eyes on the slow recovery of production in the Gulf, where 17 million barrels of oil output had been lost since Hurricane Ivan swept across early September. The major problem was that 10 large pipelines in the region that transported oil and natural gas remained shut down, and some experts said the entire repair work could take as long as six months.

While US Treasury Secretary John Snow said that he had received assurances from Arab oil-producing nations that they would do their best by increasing supply as the Northern hemisphere winter approached, these promises didn't influence over traders who were focused more on the Nigerian situation.

Source: Xinhua