Oil Reaches $100 a Barrel for First Time

Oil prices reached $100 a barrel for the first time Wednesday, surging $4 a barrel on expectations U.S. fuel stockpiles fell for a seventh straight week.

Fears violence in Nigeria would cut output from Africa’s biggest oil producer added to the rally.

The stockpiles report — which the U.S. Energy Department was to release Thursday, a day later than usual because of the New Year’s holiday — was expected to show U.S. crude supplies fell 2 million to 3 million barrels.

Militant attacks on targets in Nigeria’s chief oil-refining city, Port Harcourt, left 13 dead Tuesday, the BBC reported.

The fifth-largest exporter of oil to the United States has already had supplies hampered by militant action.

A suicide bomb blast on a police station in oil-producing Algeria Wednesday added to fears about crude supplies.

Light, sweet crude oil for February delivery closed up $3.64, or 3.79 percent, at $99.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It surged $4.02 to hit $100 a barrel at 12:09 p.m. EST.

Prices remain below their inflation-adjusted record high U.S. price of $102.81, set in April 1980, but have doubled since their low of $50 a barrel a year ago.

Natural gas rose 36.2 cents, or 4.89 percent, at $7.845 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Heating oil rallied 9.16 cents, or 3.46 percent, at $2.741 a gallon.

Reformulated-gasoline blendstock for oxygen blending jumped 8.14 cents, or 3.27 percent, at $2.5722 a gallon.

AAA said the average U.S. retail regular unleaded gasoline price was $3.049 a gallon, up 0.6 cents from Tuesday’s $3.043 a gallon.