Oil Prices Rise $72 a barrel

Oil prices rose May 1 on supply concerns arising from Iran's defiance of a UN Security Council deadline to stop enriching uranium.

Crude oil for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 82 cents to $72.70 US a barrel in morning trading. Prices briefly dipped below $71 last week after surging above $75 the week before that.

Once prices retreated toward $70, we saw the speculators come back in.

Iran, OPEC's second-largest oil producer, has said it does not intend to halt oil exports as a political tactic, but some traders fear it's a possibility if the dispute escalates, which would most likely cause oil prices to rise.

June Brent crude oil at London's ICE Futures exchange rose 58 cents to $72.60 a barrel in light holiday trading. Trading was thin due to a legal holiday in Britain.

Also supporting prices are shrinking U.S. gasoline supplies, strong global demand and supply disruptions by separatist rebels in Nigeria, the fifth-largest source of U.S. oil imports.

Gasoline futures added 2.08 cents to $2.11 a gallon while heating oil prices advanced 1.51 cents to $2.0280 a gallon. Natural gas futures climbed 21.5 cents to $6.77 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Crude-oil prices are about 40 per cent higher than a year ago. But accounting for inflation, prices are still about 20 per cent below the records reached in 1981, when supplies became tight after a revolution in Iran and a war between Iraq and Iran.